From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm : Both the Dow and S&P 500 scored strong gains today, but lackluster action among tech stocks left the Nasdaq to end the day only narrowly above the neutral line.
The risk trade was turned back on this morning. Participants put in the past the prior session's slump, which was the worst one-day percentage drop for the S&P 500 about three months, to bid stocks higher in the early going. Buyers were compelled by improved market conditions in Europe and, partly, because Italy held a successful auction of 12-month bills. Although the auction commanded a yield comfortably above 6.0%, demand for the country's debt suggested that investors haven't completely given up on the country.
Improved sentiment in Europe helped take the euro higher after it had dropped about 2% against the dollar yesterday. Today it climbed about 0.6% to $1.361.
With an opening gain on the order of 1% things were looking for stocks up in early trade, but before long stocks began to drift lower. Fear of another sell-off perpetuated further selling, but stocks found stability upon reaching the flat line. From there the market was able to rebound, but the path higher was choppy.
Every single sector settled in positive territory, but tech stocks lagged for the entire session. They finished with a paltry gain of 0.1% and ultimately hampered the Nasdaq, which trailed its counterparts since the open. That said, Cisco (CSCO 18.61, +1.00) climbed to a new multi-month high with help from an upside earnings report.
Energy stocks were leaders for the better part of the day. The sector scored a near 2% gain with help from higher oil prices, which settled pit trade more than 2% higher, near $98 per barrel.
Data today had little lasting influence on sentiment. The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 390,000, which is less than than 400,000 claims that had been exected, on average, among economists polled by Briefing.com. The latest tally is also 10,000 less than the prior week total.
The trade deficit contracted to $43.1 billion in September from $44.9 billion in the prior month. A $45.9 billion deficit had been widely expected for September.
As for the Treasury Budget. It had a deficit of $98.5 billion, which is less than the $105.0 billion deficit that had been expected to follow the $140.0 billion deficit from the prior month.
Advancing Sectors: Energy +1.8%, Health Care +1.4%, Industrials +1.1%, Materials +0.9%, Consumer Discretionary +0.9%, Telecom +0.9%, Consumer Staples +0.9%, Utilities +0.6%, Financials +0.6%, Tech +0.1%
Declining Sectors: (None)DJ30 +110.42 NASDAQ +1.96 NQ100 -0.1% R2K +0.7% SP400 +0.3% SP500 +9.62 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1574/1.90 bln/940 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2099/897 mln/912
4:03PM Microsemi reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs above consensus (MSCC) 17.25 -0.07 : Reports Q4 (Sep) earnings of $0.53 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate consensus of $0.53; revenues rose 50.3% year/year to $227.3 mln vs the $226.43 mln consensus. Co issues downside EPS guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.38-0.42, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.50 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $238-246 mln vs. $226.68 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
9:54AM NXP Semi announced that its subsidiary, NXP B.V together with NXP Funding has launched a transaction seeking commitments for up to $500 mln in new senior secured loans due 2017 (NXPI) 15.52 -0.08 : The proceeds of which would be used to refinance a portion of NXP's existing secured floating rate notes. The new secured loans would be drawn as additional loans under NXP's existing Senior Secured Term Loan Facility due 2017. The lead-left bookrunner on the transaction is Barclays Capital, the investment banking arm of Barclays Bank plc and Credit Suisse will be joint bookrunner.
EMCORE (EMKR) announced that it has ramped up to full-scale production of 56 Gigabits per second Fourteen Data Rate active optical cables for high-performance computing, Ethernet router and switch applications.
7:10AM Kulicke & Soffa beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides Q1 revs below consensus (KLIC) 9.14 : Reports Q4 (Sep) earnings of $0.31 per share, excluding foreign currency exchange lossses, and write downs in market value of building in Switzerland, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.29; revenues fell 30.4% year/year to $180.4 mln vs the $163.13 mln consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q1, sees Q1 revs of $100-120 mln vs. $154.81 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
Last night, Cisco Systems (CSCO $18.50 +1.19) reported first quarter earnings of $0.43 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ consensus of $0.39, while revenues rose 4.7% year/year to $11.26 billion versus the $11.03 billion consensus. During the first quarter of fiscal 2012, Cisco repurchased 100 million shares of common stock under the stock repurchase program at an average price of $15.37 per share for an aggregate purchase price of $1.5 billion. Days sales outstanding in accounts receivable at the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2012 were 35 days, compared with 38 days at the end of both the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011 and first quarter of fiscal 2011. Non-GAAP inventory turns were 10.9 in the first quarter of fiscal 2012, compared with 11.4 in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011, and compared with 10.8 in the first quarter of fiscal 2011.
11:09 am S&P Tech Sector Showing Modest Gains
The tech sector is trading lower today, trailing slight gains in the broader market. Semiconductors are showing slight relative weakness in the tech space with the Philly Semi Index trading only 0.3% lower. CREE (-2.2%) is a notable laggard in the chip index, while STM (+1.9%) is a leader. Among other major indices, the S&P 500 is trading 0.2% higher, while the NASDAQ is trading 0.4% lower and the QQQ is trading 0.6% lower on the session. Among tech bellwethers, CSCO (+5.6%) is a notable leader following its earnings report, while AAPL (-2.7%) is underperforming.
In earnings last night, CSCO (+5.6%) reported a Q1 beat and, on the subsequent conference call, the company guided slightly higher. Also, SPRD (-2.0%) posted a beat and offered above consensus guidance, while PEGA (-21.7%) reported a large miss and downside guidance.
Among notable analyst upgrades this morning, CSCO (+5.6%) was upgraded at Deutsche Bank, Raymond James, and Citigroup. In downgrades, CSC (-6.4%) was downgraded to Underweight at JP Morgan and Brigantine downgrades ARUN (-0.3%) to Hold.
NVDA (0.0%) is the notable names in tech set to report results today after the close. |
