From Briefing.com: 4:20 pm : Stocks spent Thursday morning trading in subdued fashion as traders found little to motivate their interests. However, concerted buying efforts surfaced early in the afternoon after crude prices took a dive. The stock market closed at its session high, up more than 1%.
Oil traded in volatile fashion Thursday. During the session, crude traded hands for more than $126 per barrel, near its all time intraday record high, before falling below $121 per barrel. Oil reclaimed its losses to finish largely unchanged near $124 per barrel.
The drop in oil prices rekindled buying interest in stocks. The tech sector (+2.1%) ended the session with the largest gain, led by large-cap tech players Intel (INTC 24.97, +1.13), Cisco (CSCO 26.50, +0.75), and Microsoft (MSFT 30.45, +0.52).
Yahoo! (YHOO 27.75, +0.61) also ended the day higher after billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn officially announced plans to take a proxy fight to the company. Icahn delivered a letter to Yahoo! with the biographies of 10 nominees he is recommending for the company's board of directors.
In merger and acquisition news, media company CBS Corp. (CBS 24.23, -0.59) announced it will acquire Internet news company CNET Networks (CNET 11.41, +3.46) for $1.8 billion, or $11.50 per share.
Dow Jones component and industrial conglomerate General Electric (GE 32.37, -0.14) announced it will be selling its appliance business. Investors reacted by pushing the stock marginally lower.
A batch of economic news prompted little reaction among stock traders in the early going. Leading the list were jobless claims data for the week ending May 10, which totaled 371,000. The claims were largely in-line with expectations. Most notably, the four-week claims average edged down a bit and continues to trend below recessionary levels.
Industrial production for April slipped 0.7%, which was a more substantial downturn than the 0.3% downturn that was expected. Capacity utilization for April totaled 79.7%, which is below the consensus utilization rate forecast of 80.1%. The prior month's capacity utilization reading was revised marginally lower to 80.4%.
The Empire State Manufacturing Index for May came in at -3.2, which is below the flat reading economists expected. Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Fed Survey, another regional manufacturing index, posted a reading of -15.6 for May. A reading of -19.0 was expected. Notably, the prior month's reading was unrevised at -24.9.
Treasurys attracted some buying interest. The 10-year Treasury Note climbed 24 ticks this session, reducing its yield to 3.82%. DJ30 +94.28 NASDAQ +37.03 NQ100 +1.7% R2K +1.0% SP400 +1.2% SP500 +14.91 NASDAQ Dec/Adv/Vol 1106/1757/2.22 bln NYSE Dec/Adv/Vol 911/2192/1.20 bln
DigiTimes: After going through an industry trough in the first quarter, IC distributors recently expressed confidence over the sales prospects of white-box handsets in the third quarter, following advanced component bookings in the second quarter, according to sources at distributors... Global PC demand seems to be showing signs of weakening in the second half of May, with some IC design houses in Taiwan that have a relatively heavy sales exposure to the segment starting to trim their monthly sales projection for June. Most of them have expressed concerns about a strong PC component inventory correction for the month... TXN believes that handheld and mobile projection products may replicate the success of handset-use built-in cameras, and their popularity will grow fast in the next five to 10 years, according to John Van Scoter, co senior vice president and general manager of D.L.P. Products.
8:56AM Trina Solar signs long-term polysilicon supply agreement with DTK Industries (TSL) 45.64 : Co announced that it has signed a long-term polysilicon supply agreement with Jupiter Corporation Ltd., an affiliate of DTK Industries. Under this agreement, Qingdao DTK will supply Trina Solar with virgin polysilicon sufficient to produce approximately 650 MW of solar modules in aggregate over six years. Delivery of polysilicon at predetermined prices is expected to start in the third quarter of 2009.
8:04AM Chipmos Technology receives preliminary approval to decrease the registered capital of ChipMOS Shanghai (IMOS) 2.90 : Co announces that its controlled subsidiary, ChipMOS Shanghai, has received a written notice of agreement-in- principle from the Shanghai Foreign Investment Commission to decrease its registered capital from $250 mln to $130 mln on May 14th, 2008.
09:41 am SanDisk: . Target $38. Needham upgraded SNDK to Buy from Hold with a $38 tgt. Firm believes NAND prices will remain stable in the next few months as the market reaches near-term supply/demand balance, and better pricing will drive upside to ests. Additionally, they believe SNDK's competitive position is improving with more leverage in the model. While the shares have had a strong run since bottoming in March, firm sees more upside on higher ests and more P/E expansion.
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