From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm : Stocks slipped after a choppy start to the session, but buyers eventually stepped back in to provide a broad lift. Their efforts picked up right around the time that trade in Europe wrapped up.
Sentiment this morning was initially imbued by renewed worries about financial conditions in Europe, where the region's major bourses traded with weakness once again. Once trade there was closed, the mood among market participants quickly improved. At about the same time the euro started to move off of its intraday low, although it was still down about 0.7% against the greenback at session's end.
The Nasdaq was able to outperform its counterparts with help from tech stocks. As a group, tech issues advanced 1.3%. Intel (INTC 25.34, +0.71) was a steady leader, but Dell (DELL 15.63, +0.31) also advanced nicely ahead of its quarterly announcement.
Wal-Mart (WMT 57.46, -1.43) weighed on the Dow for virtually the entire session. The stock's weakness came after the retail behemoth failed to produce the earnings expected by Wall Street.
An upside earnings surprise helped Home Depot (HD 38.07, -0.18) shares bounce at the open, but the stock failed to hold that move and never really recovered, not even amid the broad market's afternoon bounce.
Word of an oil leak at a rig run by Chevron (CVX 103.27, -2.90) and Transocean (RIG 47.86, -1.85) dragged down the pair's shares, as well as those of other oil and gas services players. Collectively, energy stocks logged a 0.2% loss, making them the only major sector that failed to score a gain.
Share volume was anemic for the second straight session. Yesterday it barely broke 700 million on the NYSE and today it failed to crack 800 million. Over the past 50 days share volume on the Big Board has averaged about 1 billion shares per session.
A substantial dose of data didn't even attract participants to the action. Overall, the reports were generally proved pleasing.
Retail sales climbed by 0.5% during October. A 0.4% increase had been generally expected. Excluding autos, sales actually increased by 0.6%, which is well above the 0.2% pickup that had been widely anticipated.
Producer prices for October fell by 0.3%, exceeding the 0.2% decline that had been commonly forecasted. Core prices were flat for the month, not too different than the 0.1% increase expected among economists surveyed by Briefing.com.
The Empire State Manufacturing Survey for November improved to 0.6 from -8.5 in the prior month. Many thought it would remain in negative territory by an incremental margin.
Business inventories for September were flat, contrasting with the Briefing.com consensus call for a 0.2% increase.
Advancing Sectors: Tech +1.3%, Industrials +0.6%, Telecom +0.5%, Financials +0.4%, Consumer Discretionary +0.4%, Consumer Staples +0.4%, Utilities +0.2%, Tech +0.2%, Materials +0.1%
Declining Sectors: Energy -0.2%DJ30 +17.18 NASDAQ +28.98 NQ100 +1.1% R2K +1.4% SP400 +1.0% SP500 +6.03 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1712/1.68 bln/825 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1903/781 mln/1107
4:11PM Amtech Systems beats by $0.02, beats on revs; guides DecQ sharply lower, cites lower solar capacity expansion plans (ASYS) 10.37 +0.15 : Reports Q4 (Sep) earnings of $0.31 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.02 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.29; revenues rose 31.8% year/year to $59.9 mln vs the $54.3 mln consensus. Co issues downside guidance for Q1 (Dec), sees a loss for the quarter vs. $0.26 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $21-23 mln vs. $49.6 mln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co says "The current supply/demand imbalance and global economic conditions have negatively impacted growth in the solar equipment market. Visibility is currently unclear as these conditions have caused solar cell manufacturers, Amtech's principal solar customer base, to significantly slow or push out their capacity expansion plans.
4:08PM Dell beats by $0.07, misses on revs; lowers FY12 revs guidance, reaffirms FY12 operating income guidance (DELL) 15.63 +0.31 : Reports Q3 (Oct) earnings of $0.54 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.07 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.47; revenues fell 1.9% year/year to $15.37 mln vs the $15.66 bln consensus. Dell reaffirms FY12 operating income guidance of +17-23%. Dell sees FY12 revenue at lower end of the range of its revenue outlook of 1-5% full fiscal-year growth; 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"
4:08PM Fairchild Semi is reversing its March 2009 announcement to close the Mountain Top, Pennsylvania facility (FCS) 14.39 +0.16 : Since the original closure announcement, Fairchild has more than doubled its sales of the high voltage and automotive products which the Mountain Top facility supports. Fairchild expects to continue the rapid expansion of these businesses and determined that retaining the Mountain Top facility will be essential to supporting our customers' current and future needs.
4:07PM Agilent beats by $0.03, misses on revs; guides Q1 EPS in-line, revs in-line; guides FY12 EPS in-line, revs in-line (A) 38.25 +0.70 : Reports Q4 (Oct) earnings of $0.84 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.81; revenues rose 9.6% year/year to $1.73 bln vs the $1.75 bln consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.67-0.69 vs. $0.70 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees Q1 revs of $1.65-1.67 bln vs. $1.66 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Co issues in-line guidance for FY12, sees EPS of $3.00-3.35 vs. $3.12 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY12 revs of $6.85-7.15 bln vs. $6.97 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate.
9:02AM Arris and Cisco (CSCO) announced an agreement on a wavelength mgmt plan in the C-band that will provide cable operators with International Telecom Union-based full spectrum Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing multi-wavelength optical solution for increased capacity and expanded services (ARRS) 10.89 :
Taleo (TLEO) announced that Towne Park has selected Taleo's SaaS solution to recruit and onboard top talent for the organization. Cryptography Research, a division of Rambus (RMBS), and Mikron JSC, a division of SITRONICS announced they have signed a license agreement regarding the use of CRI's patents in Mikron products, including Mikron's secure integrated circuits.
Lattice Semiconductor (LSCC) and Phoenix Technologies announced they have signed a distribution agreement for Israel. Under the terms of the agreement, Phoenix Technologies is authorized to sell Lattice's complete portfolio of innovative low power, low cost FPGA, PLD and programmable power management design solutions in the region.
NXP Semiconductors (NXPI) introduced the CLRC663, the first member of a new generation of high-performance proximity contactless reader ICs.
Research In Motion (RIMM) announced two new smartphones based on the BlackBerry 7 operating system, the BlackBerry Bold 9790 and BlackBerry Curve 9380.
LDK Solar (LDK $3.37 -0.16) issued downside guidance for the third quarter with revenues to $460-470 million from $630-680 million versus the $607.84 million Capital IQ consensus, wafer shipments between 285 and 290 megawatts, module shipments between 185 MW and 190 MW, in-house polysilicon production between 2,850 MT and 2,900 MT and in-house cell production between 295 MW and 300 MW. As a result of the rapidly declining market price for wafers and modules during the third quarter of 2011, LDK Solar expects to write-down $45 to $50 million of inventories and expects the gross margin for the third quarter of 2011 to be between negative 3.5% and 5.0%. The company issued downside guidance for fiscal year 2011 with revenues to $2.20-2.25 billion from $2.5-2.7 billion versus the $2.45 billion consensus. wafer shipments between 1.55 gigawatts and 1.65 GW, module shipments between 550 MW and 650 MW, in-house polysilicon production between 10,000 MT and 11,000 MT, in-house cell production between 600 MW and 700 MW and gross margins between 9% and 12%
Riverbed (RVBD $29.74 +1.15) was upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform at RBC Capital Mkts and the firm raised their target to $35 from $28 based on an improving pipeline across a broader base of customers, stabilizing trends in Europe and view that Riverbed's winrate may start to increase as competitors deemphasize the WAN optimization market.
The tech sector is trading higher today, ahead of modest gains in the broader market. Semiconductors are showing relative strength in the tech space with the Philly Semi Index trading 0.7% higher. VECO (-2.9%) was a notable laggard in the chip index. Among other major indices, the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ are trading 0.7% higher, while the QQQ is trading +1.0% higher on the session. Among tech bellwethers, AAPL (+2.3%) and INTC (+2.8%) are notable leaders, while IBM (+0.6%) is underperforming.
In earnings, TSEM (-3.2%) reported a Q3 miss and guided lower. In news last night, Huawei acquired SYMC's (+0.9%) stake in Huawei Symantec joint venture for $530 mln.
Among notable analyst upgrades this morning, A (+0.9%) was upgraded to Buy at BofA/Merrill and RVBD (+3.1%) was upgraded to Outperform at RBC Capital. Also, JPM was out positive on BRCM (+2.4%), believing that the co won business for Windows Phone-7 smartphones.
In downgrades, STX (-0.3%) was downgraded to Hold at Deutsche Bank and Needham downgraded OVTI (-1.6%) and, separately, WDC (-3.6%) to Hold.
A (+0.9%) and DELL (+1.5%) are notable names in tech scheduled to report results today after the close.
09:15 am Western Digital downgraded to Hold at Needham: . Needham downgrades WDC to Hold from Buy on concerns that either the company is successful in acquiring Hitachi but is forced to pay higher interest rates, issue more stock, or otherwise make concessions that limit the benefits of the deal and that the combined company's balance sheet is severely impaired; or that the deal does not go through (which seems increasingly likely) and that WD is forced to expend considerable cash to recover its manufacturing capabilities, weakening its balance sheet.
09:15 am OmniVision downgraded to Hold at Needham: . Needham downgrades OVTI to Hold from Strong Buy saying while OVTI significantly lowered its F2Q12 revenue outlook on 11/7, they believe OVTI faces two long-term challenges: 1) gross margin compression due to increasing pricing pressure and 2) an accelerating competitive landscape in the 8MP non-Apple smartphone market. Firm says their industry checks indicate that OVTI has lost a considerable share of the non-Apple smartphone market to players such as Samsung, Aptina & Toshiba. |
