From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : The major averages halted their three-day losing streak with a modest bounce that sent the Nasdaq Composite higher by 0.8%. The S&P 500, meanwhile, added 0.4% with seven sectors posting gains.
Equity indices exhibited some volatility during the opening hour before setting off on a climb to new session highs. The Nasdaq, which was the weakest index in recent days, stayed ahead of its peers throughout the day as momentum names recovered some of their recent losses.
The Nasdaq was supported by solid gains among the likes of Amazon.com (AMZN 327.07, +9.31), Google (GOOG 554.90, +16.75), LinkedIn (LNKD 169.10, +9.45), and Netflix (NFLX 348.89, +10.89). Amazon.com and Netflix also gave a boost to the consumer discretionary sector (+1.0%), while Google and LinkedIn contributed to the outperformance of the technology space (+0.9%).
Even though two of the largest sectors posted solid gains, other top-weighted groups like health care (-0.8%), financials (+0.1%), and industrials (unch) could not keep pace with the broader market. Notably, the health care sector finished at the bottom of the leaderboard amid weakness in biotechnology. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 225.83, -0.99) lost 0.4%.
The underperformance of the aforementioned sectors was overshadowed by solid gains in most of the remaining areas. Energy (+0.9%) and materials (+0.4%) finished among the outperformers thanks to gains in the underlying commodities as crude oil surged 2.2% to $102.60, while copper (+0.4% to $3.05/lb) and gold (+0.5% to $1304.30/ozt) also posted gains.
Interestingly, today's session was not free of some warning flags. For one, the top-performing sector of the day was the utilities space (+1.5%), which has a defensive orientation. The countercyclical group extended its year-to-date gain to 10.3%, while the second-best performer of the year, health care, narrowed its gain to 2.8%.
Elsewhere, Treasuries began climbing during the late morning and continued their advance through a solid 3-year note auction. The benchmark 10-yr yield fell three basis points to 2.68%.
Also of note, the Japanese yen rallied throughout the day, which is a dynamic that has often signaled caution among participants. Yen futures gained 1.4%, while the dollar/yen pair traded near the 101.75 level at the end of the New York session after hovering north of 103.00 overnight.
Trading volume was just above average as 733 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.
Today's economic data was limited to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for February, which indicated job openings rose to 4.173 million from 3.874 million.
Tomorrow, the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00 ET, while the Wholesale Inventories report for February (Briefing.com consensus 0.5%) will cross the wires at 10:00 ET. Also of note, the Federal Reserve will release the minutes from its latest policy meeting at 14:00 ET.
S&P 500 +0.2% YTD
Russell 2000 -1.5% YTD
Nasdaq Composite -1.5% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -1.9% YTD
DJ30 +10.27 NASDAQ +33.23 SP500 +6.92 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1868/2.04 bln/924 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2090/732.6 mln/968
3:35 pm :
Commodities ended the day mostly higher, while the dollar index continued to display weakness and closed near its session low
Despite the weakness and in the dollar index,silver futures continued to slide lower off its high for the day
May silver ended the day $0.16 higher at $20.07/oz. June gold rose $6.10/oz to $1304.30/oz
May crude oil posted nice gains today and put in another new high for the day at $102.71/barrel about 12 minutes after pit trade closed.
At the end of the pit session, May crude was up $2.14 at $102.59/barrel. May natural gas gained $0.06 to $4.53/MMBtu
4:31PM Rambus division and Fairchild Semiconductor (FCS) sign patent license agreement for DPA countermeasures (RMBS) 11.18 +0.06 : Cryptography Research, Inc. (CRI), a division of Rambus (RMBS), and Fairchild Semiconductor (FCS) announced they have signed a patent license agreement allowing for the use of CRI's patented inventions in Fairchild's integrated circuits. With CRI's patented technology, Fairchild's tamper-resistant integrated circuits are more securely protected against differential power analysis (DPA) and related attacks. This license also covers software developed by Fairchild's customers when utilized on Fairchild's licensed integrated circuits.
4:07PM Cray awarded a contract to deliver a Cray Tiered Adaptive Storage solution to the North German Supercomputing Alliance (CRAY) 33.69 +0.21 : CRAY announced it has been awarded a contract to deliver a Cray Tiered Adaptive Storage (TAS) solution to the North German Supercomputing Alliance (HLRN). Cray TAS is an open storage and archiving solution for big data and high performance computing environments, and gives HLRN a long-term data management solution for its High Performance Computing Center (RRZN) located at Leibniz University in Hannover, Germany.
The Cray TAS solution will provide RRZN's users with a large-scale archiving system to actively access, manage and preserve important data resulting from the Center's scientific research in the fields of environmental research, climate and ocean modeling, physics, chemistry, bioinformatics, engineering, and fluid dynamics.
This Cray TAS installation consists of more than one petabyte of data storage and is upgradeable to more than 75 petabytes within the delivered architecture.
For RRZN, Cray TAS provided a fast path to move from its existing Oracle SAM-QFS installation to Cray TAS without a lengthy data migration period.
4:06PM Alcoa beats by $0.04, misses on revs (AA) 12.53 +0.06 : Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.09 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $0.05; revenues fell 6.5% year/year to $5.45 bln vs the $5.55 bln consensus.
First quarter 2014 revenues were $5.5 billion, down 2 percent sequentially on lower Primary Metals third-party shipments.
Capacity reductions in Primary Metals combined with an 8 percent decline in year-over-year realized aluminum prices caused revenues to fall 6 percent from the first quarter last year.
The Company's value-add businesses drove 58 percent of Alcoa's first quarter revenues.
Continued Growth Across End Markets
Alcoa is increasing its 2014 global aerospace growth expectation by one percentage point (8 percent to 9 percent, previously 7 percent to 8 percent), on strong demand for both large commercial aircraft and regional jets and continued growth in the business jet market. The Company also continues to project 2014 growth in automotive (1 percent to 4 percent), packaging (2 percent to 3 percent), and building and construction (4 percent to 6 percent).
Alcoa expects a steady commercial transportation market (-1 percent to 3 percent) and a decline in the industrial gas turbine market (-8 percent to -12 percent) on lower orders for new gas turbines and spare parts.
Alcoa continues to project 7 percent global aluminum demand growth in 2014.
12:20PM Notable movers of interest (SCANX) : The following are some of today's most notable movers of interest, categorized by market capitalization (large cap over $10 billion and mid cap between $2-10 billion) and ranked by % change (all stocks over 100K average daily volume).
Large Cap Gainers
NOK (7.61 +5.34%): Co's plan to sell its Devices and Services business to Microsoft (MSFT) received regulatory approval in China.
BIDU (152 +5.92%): Qunar (QUNR), part of Bidu, is in merger talks with Ctrip.com (CTRP), according to reports.
WFM (51.78 +2.96%): Co's tgt raised to $70 from $62 at UBS; added to Key Call list.
Large Cap Losers
DPS (51.96 -3.2%): Downgraded to Underperform from Market Perform at Wells Fargo.
MYL (47.18 -2.52%): Weakness on Supreme Court/generic drug headlines; Albany Business Review discussed how TEVA is preparing for a Supreme Court case over generic cos rights to produce drugs following patent expiration (ACT also lower).
GILD (69.96 -3.15%): Express Scripts (ESRX) is pressuring GILD to lower $84K price of Hep C pill Sovaldi, according to reports.
Mid Cap Gainers
WUBA (42.2 +11.55%): Tiger Global Investments reported 6.5% passive stake in 13G filing.
VIPS (142.41 +10.94%): Upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Credit Suisse.
QUNR (29.22 +8.62%): Co is in merger talks with Ctrip.com (CTRP), according to reports.
Mid Cap Losers
ROVI (21.14 -9.11%): Trading lower following unfavorable Court of Appeals ruling on TV Guide appeal vs Amazon (AMZN).
DGI (27.4 -4.55%): CRT out cautious on co after Google (GOOG) entered mkt with purchase of Skybox Imaging.
UFS (102.51 -3.94%): Downgraded to Sell from Neutral at Citigroup; tgt lowered to $90 from $106.
8:30AM Ixia selected by Microsoft (MSFT) as the official provider to qualify mobile devices for use with Microsoft's Lync application (XXIA) 12.63 : Co announced that it has been selected by Microsoft as the official provider to qualify mobile devices for use with Microsoft's Lync application. The expanding use of mission-critical applications encompassing voice, video and messaging is placing increased strain on mobile devices, while at the same time, customer expectations for quality are rising. Ixia's Wi-Fi device qualification includes rigorous testing in real-world scenarios to ensure that smartphones, tablets and laptops perform as expected when running Microsoft Lync.
Semtech (SMTC) announced its LoRa long-range RF technology has been chosen by KERLINK M2M Technologies, a Rennes, France-based supplier of machine-to-machine solutions, for its new Long Range IoT Station.
Microchip Technology (MCHP) announced the MCP8063-a highly integrated, cost-effective, automotive AEC-Q100-qualified motor driver in a small, 8-pin, 4x4 mm DFN package
Marvell (MRVL) announced its partnership with Swisscom to introduce the industry's first 802.11ac Android IPTV set-top box powered by Marvell's ARMADA 1500 Plus (88DE3108) system-on-chip platform.
MTSN +3.7% (light volume; still checking), NOK +3.3% (Nokia's plan to sell its Devices and Services business to Microsoft receives regulatory approval in China),
ARMH +2.1% (upgraded to Mkt Perform from Underperform at Bernstein)
Trina Solar (TSL) announced that its State Key Laboratory of PV Science and Technology has developed a new high-efficiency Honey Ultra solar module.
7:03AM JinkoSolar Holding signs distribution agreement with solar distributor in India (JKS) 27.30 : Co announced that it has signed a distribution agreement with PROINSO India. According to the terms of the agreement, PROINSO will begin distributing JinkoSolar solar PV modules through its extensive sales network in India. PROINSO will make use of its Mumbai office, experienced professionals who staff it, and 125 qualified installers who form part of its network in India.
3:21AM Nokia's plan to sell its Devices and Services business to Microsoft (MSFT) receives regulatory approval in China (NOK) 7.22 : Nokia announced that the planned transaction whereby Nokia plans to sell substantially all of its Devices & Services business to Microsoft has today received regulatory approval from the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China.
As previously communicated, the closing of the transaction, which was announced on September 3, 2013, is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. Nokia and Microsoft have now received regulatory approvals from the People's Republic of China, the European Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice and numerous other jurisdictions. Nokia and Microsoft continue to expect the transaction to close during April 2014, as communicated in our press release from March 24, 2014.
The regulatory approval process has involved a thorough review of Nokia's patent licensing practices by several competition authorities around the world. During that process, no authority has challenged Nokia's compliance with its FRAND undertakings related to standard-essential patents (licensing on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms) or requested that Nokia make changes to its licensing program or royalty terms.
Peregrine Semiconductor (PSMI) debuts its new line of UltraCMOS RF power limiters, including PE45140 and PE45450 slated for release in May.
2:43AM BlackBerry wins patent infringement case (BBRY) 7.86 : Co announces that a federal jury ruled in favor of BlackBerry in a patent infringement case brought by NXP BV in the U.S. District Court, Middle District of Florida, Orlando Division. The verdict was a sweeping victory for BlackBerry, as the jury found both that BlackBerry did not infringe NXP's patents, and that the patents NXP asserted against BlackBerry are invalid.
Samsung (SSNLF) announced it sees Q1 Consolidated revenues estimated at KRW51.0 - 55.0 trillion which is line with estimates. Co also sees Operating profit of KRW8.2-8.6 trillion. |
