From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm : Stocks rolled over in the final hour of trade to logg sizable losses. The move lower coincided with a retreat by the euro.
The major equity averages opened trade today with marked losses, but stocks gradually worked their way up to the neutral line. The lack of leadership left stocks to lose momentum and drift back into negative territory.
Selling accelerated in the final hour, right around the time that the euro began its pullback from positive territory. The euro, generally a barometer of confidence in the eurozone, had been down against the greenback in morning trade, but eventually mustered a modest gain. That move proved unsustainable, though, as it forfeited its gain to trade with a 0.3% loss against the dollar by session's end.
Although it wasn't a revelation, analysts at Fitch reminded market participants about the risk of contagion by suggesting that domestic banks could be hurt if the fiscal and financial problems of Europe worsen. For now, though, the analysts have a stable outlook on the U.S. banking industry. In contrast, analysts at Moody's downgraded credit ratings on 10 banks in Germany, which is Europe's strongest, most diversified economy.
Financials had been relatively weak all session and, perhaps appropriately, suffered some of the steepest losses. The sector's 2.5% drop was driven by shares of large-cap diversified financial services players like Bank of America (BAC 5.90, -0.23), which set a new monthly low.
Even energy stocks were imbued by broad market weakness, despite a rally by oil prices to a multi-month high above $100 per barrel. The energy component closed pit trade more than 3% higher at almost $102.60 per barrel, but energy stocks, as a group, logged a 1.5% loss.
Tech stocks tried to offer support on a few occassions, but efforts were repeatedly checked by sellers, culminating in a 1.5% loss for the largest sector by market weight. Dell (DELL 15.25, -0.38) was a steady drag after its tepid guidance cast a pall over an upside earnings surprise.
For the second straight session data did little for traders. The economic calendar featured an October Consumer Price Index that slipped by 0.1%, which is not too different than the consensus call for no change. Core prices made a 0.1% increase, just as had been generally expected. Separately, industrial production increased in October by 0.7%. That exceeded the 0.4% increase that had been broadly expected.
Advancing Sectors: (None)
Declining Sectors: Consumer Staples -0.8%, Utilities -1.3%, Tech -1.5%, Energy -1.5%, Industrials -1.5%, Telecom -1.6%, Health Care -1.8%, Consumer Discretionary -1.9%, Materials -2.4%, Financials -2.5%DJ30 -190.57 NASDAQ -46.59 NQ100 -1.8% R2K -1.8% SP400 -1.4% SP500 -20.90 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 682/1.95 bln/1880 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 720/918 mln/2309
5:05PM SunPower announces entry into new supplemental indentures in connection with common stock reclassification (SPWRA) 7.29 +0.07 : Co announced the execution of four new supplemental indentures, with Wells Fargo Bank, National Association, as trustee, to reflect the stockholder-approved reclassification of the company's Class A common stock and Class B common stock into a single class of common stock on a one-for-one basis as previously announced
4:15PM Applied Materials beats by $0.01, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS, revs (midopint) below consensus (AMAT) 12.47 -0.17 : Reports Q4 (Oct) earnings of $0.21 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.01 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.20; revenues fell 24.4% year/year to $2.18 bln vs the $2.15 bln consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.08-0.16, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.18 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of -5 to -15% QoQ to ~$1.85-2.07 bln vs. $2.07 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
2:44PM Rambus confirms the jury in its anti-trust case against Hynix Semiconductor and Micron Technology (MU) has found in favor of the defendants. (RMBS) 18.37 +0.363 : Co announced the jury in its anti-trust case against Hynix Semiconductor and Micron Technology (MU) has found in favor of the defendants. The jury found that Rambus did not meet its burden of proving its case against the two defendants. At issue were Rambus allegations that the defendants illegally conspired to constrain availability of Rambus' RDRAM and keep its prices unnaturally high relative to its competition, while holding competitive DDR pricing low, in an effort to eliminate Rambus' RDRAM memory technology from the marketplace. Upon succeeding in eliminating RDRAM as a competitor in the main memory market, the defendants raised the prices of DDR by as much as 500%. RMBS stated "We are disappointed with this verdict as we believe strongly in our case. We thank our legal team and everyone who has supported Rambus in this case over the past seven years. We do not agree with several rulings that affected how this case was presented to the jury and we are reviewing our options for appeal," (stocks are halted)
9:03AM ZOOM Technologies announced that its 'Leimone' brand 3G mobile phones have been approved by China Mobile (CHL) for its TD-SCDMA product lineup; expected for Q1 2012 (ZOOM) 1.72 : Once approval is obtained, the i99 will be branded with China Mobile's 3G Logo and will be available on China Mobile's vast national retail network and also its Electronic Purchase Platform (EPP), and be sold bundled with China Mobile's various service plans.
F5 Networks (FFIV) announced improved live virtual machine migration capabilities for customers leveraging NetApp (NTAP) unified storage and VMware (VMW) virtualization solutions.
ZOOM Technologies (ZOOM $1.39- 0.33) reported Q3 net income of $1.76 million, while revenues came in at $50.75 million versus the $99.72 million single estimate. The company is estimating the same level of revenue for 2011 and 2010, at slightly over $250 million versus the $331 million single estimate, while net income for 2011 is estimated to be down to about $8 million from $12.8 million in 2010 due to reduced sales resulting from a credit tightening environment in China. However, the company sees the domestic and Asian markets to show improvements in 2012, and coupling a full year of contribution from Portables Unlimited, a cellular service and product distributor in the U.S. that the Company recently acquired, Zoom is projecting 2012 revenue to be in the range of $360 million to $380 million, net income between $12 million to $13 million and EBITDA between $17 million to $19 million.
Autodesk (ADSK $36.23 +2.18) reported thrid quarter earnings of $0.44 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ consensus of $0.40, while revenues rose 15.1% year/year to $548.6 million versus the $544.07 million consensus. The company issued in-line guidance for the fourth quarter with EPS of $0.42-0.45 versus the $0.44 consensus and revenues of $575-590 million versus the $583.08 million consensus. Net revenue for fiscal 2013 is expected to increase by at least 10% compared to fiscal 2012. Autodesk anticipates fiscal 2013 GAAP operating margin to increase by approximately 150 basis points and non-GAAP operating margin to increase by approximately 200 basis points compared to fiscal 2012.
Dell (DELL $15.30 -0.33) reported third quarter earnings of $0.54 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.47, while revenues fell 1.9% year/year to $15.37 billion versus the $15.66 billio consensus. Dell reaffirmed its fiscal year 2012 operating income guidance of +17-23%. Dell sees fiscal year 2012 revenue at lower end of the range of its revenue outlook of 1-5% full fiscal-year growth, while consensus calls for 1.6% growth. "Given the uncertain macroeconomic environment and complexity in working through the industry-wide hard drive issue, the company is trending to the lower end of the range of its revenue outlook of 1 to 5-percent full fiscal-year growth"
Qualcomm (QCOM $57.00 -0.40) at an analyst day reaffirmed guidance for the first quarter with EPS of $0.86-0.92, excluding non-recurring items, versus the $0.90 Capital IQ Consensus and revenues of $4.35-4.75 billion versus the $4.56 billion consensus. The company reaffirmed guidance for fiscal year 2012 with EPS of $3.42-3.62, excluding non-recurring items, versus the $3.59 consensus and revenues of $18.0-19.0 billion versus the $18.43 billion consensus.
Amtech Systems (ASYS $9.17 -1.20) was downgraded to Buy at Feltl & Co. and the firm lowered their target to $10 from $18 after the company reported better than expected results in the quarter, however, this largely reflected a more rapid decrease in the company's solar backlog than they had anticipated. |
