From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm : Another round of broad-based buying gave stocks their fourth straight gain today. They now enter Friday with a weekly gain of almost 5%.
Positive momentum from the past few sessions helped prop up stocks ahead of the open. Buying interest was further bolstered by news that the European Central Bank has coordinated efforts with the Fed and other central banks to extend dollar loans to European banks, so as to help improve their liquidity. The announcement also acted as a tacit pledge of support for the continent's banks, which have been a source of concern amid the precarious fiscal and financial conditions in the eurozone periphery. The news also drove up the euro, but cut down the dollar.
Despite their strong start, stocks encountered some selling pressure when the S&P 500 attempted to push through the prior session's highs, just above 1200. The stock market quickly fell about 1%, but was able to stabilize then stage a steady climb. It paused in the 1202-1204 zone before claiming another leg of gains and settling at its session high.
This session's advance has the stock market up about 4.8% week to date. While that may sound like a heady move, it marks only the second weekly gain for the S&P 500 in eight weeks.
Even though many participants bought stocks for no other reason than to chase gains, Netflix (NFLX 169.42, -39.29) failed to find any support at all. The stock surrendered almost one-fifth of its market cap as it fell to a new 2011 low in response to a downwardly revised customer count.
There wasn't much other corporate news, but traders were dealt a large dose of data. It was generally underwhelming, but it was essentially shrugged off in light of today's positive tone.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims tally totaled 428,000, which exceeded the 410,000 initial claims that had been broadly expected. Moreover, the latest initial claims total is up 11,000 from the prior week.
Overall consumer prices for August increased by 0.4%, which is greater than the 0.2% increase that had been broadly expected. Core consumer prices increased by 0.2%, as had been anticipated, however.
The Empire State Manufacturing Survey for September fell to -8.8 from -7.7 in the prior month. It had been expected to come in at -4.0, based on the Briefing.com consensus. In a similar vein, the Philadelphia Fed Survey for September came in at -17.5, which is an improvement from the -30.7 that was posted in the prior month, but still below the -10.0 that had been expected among economists surveyed by Brieifng.com.
The second quarter current account deficit totaled $118.0 billion. It was generally expected to total $121.5 billion.
Last on the list, industrial production for August increased by 0.2%, which exceeded expectations for no change.
Advancing Sectors: Telecom +0.9%, Health Care +1.0%, Consumer Staples +1.3%, Utilities +1.3%, Materials +1.7%, Tech +1.8%, Consumer Discretionary +1.8%, Industrials +1.9%, Energy +2.0%, Financials +2.6%
Declining Sectors: (None) DJ30 +186.45 NASDAQ +34.52 NQ100 +1.5% R2K +1.3% SP400 +1.3% SP500 +20.43
4:21PM Research In Motion misses by $0.09, misses on revs; guides Q3 EPS in-line, revs above consensus; sees FY12 EPS at low end of previous range (RIMM) 29.54 -0.18 : Reports Q2 (Aug) earnings of $0.80 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.09 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.89; revenues fell 9.8% year/year to $4.17 bln vs the $4.48 bln consensus. RIMM reports Q2 gross margins were 38.7%; Guidance was 39%. RIMM ships 10.6 mln handheld devices in Q2; range of expectations was 11.0-12.5 mln units. RIMM ships 200K Playbooks in Q2; shipped ~500K in Q1. Co issues guidance for Q3, sees EPS of $1.20-1.40 vs. $1.38 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q3 revs of $5.3-5.6 bln vs. $5.27 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Gross margin percentage for the third quarter is expected to be ~37%. BlackBerry smartphone shipments are expected to be between 13.5-14.5 million units. Co sees guidance at low end for FY12, sees EPS at low end of $5.25-6.00 vs. $5.06 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. The revenue breakdown for the quarter was ~73% for hardware, 24% for service, and 3% for software and other revenue.
4:11PM Texas Instruments will raise its quarterly cash dividend 31% to $0.17/share, up from the prior $0.13/share (TXN) 27.71 +0.44 :
8:00AM LTX-Credence authorized a stock repurchase program for up to $25 mln (LTXC) 5.78 :
Microsemi (MSCC) and Avnet Memec, a division of Avnet Electronics Marketing, an operating group of Avnet (AVT) announced an expanded distribution relationship in the Americas.
1:01AM Intel prices $ 5 bln of Notes consisting of 1.95% notes due 2016; 3.3% notes due 2021; and 4.8% notes due 2041 (INTC) 21.11 :
09:10 am Applied Materials upgraded to Outperform at Oppenheimer; tgt $16: . Oppenheimer upgrades AMAT to Outperform from Perform and sets target price at $16. They visited Semicon Taiwan last week and can see that pessimism is receding. Sure, none of AMAT's four cylinders are firing through CQ3, CQ4, for now. But, 1) a "pulled-forward" Chinese New Year on Jan. 23 in 2012, 2) AAPL, AMZN and Windows 8, ultrabook product releases, and other factors are all making for a good buying oppty into the next upcycle, macro willing.
11:48 am S&P Tech Sector Trading One Percent Higher, In-line With The Broader Market (AMAT)
The tech sector is trading higher today, inline with gains the broader market. Semiconductors are also trading inline rest of the tech space with the Philly Semi Index trading 0.7% higher. Among chips in the index, STM (+3.7%) and MRVL (+4.1%) are notable leaders, while VECO (-5.8%) is under pressure. Among other major indices, the S&P 500 is trading 0.7% higher, while the NASDAQ is trading 0.5% higher. The QQQ is also trading 0.7% higher. Among tech bellwethers, INTC (+1.5%) and CSCO (+1.5%) are leaders.
In earnings this morning, AIXG (-11.2%) lowered its outlook for 2011 sales and operating margins and PWRD (-17.4%) lowering its Q3 rev guidance below consensus. In news, KITD (-10.0%) proposed a public offering.
Among notable ratings calls this morning, Oppenheimer upgraded AMAT (+3.0%) to Outperform, SPIL (+5.0%), TSM (+2.8%), and UMC (0.0%) were upgraded to Buy at BofA/Merrill. Also, ARX (+13.0%) was added to the Conviction Buy List at Goldman.
RIMM (+0.8%) is the notable name in tech set to report results today after the close.
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
