From Briefing.com: 4:15 pm : Stocks finished off their lows, but still ended with large losses as negative headlines from Europe continued to flow. The headlines started with Spain formally requesting EUR100 billion to recapitalize its banks, and continued with the resignation of Greece’s newly appointed finance minister along with Cyprus asking the European Union for help. A small rally in the final hour of the session helped the major averages climb off their worst levels, but the S&P 500 still ended down 1.6%.
European bank stocks were hit hard on today’s news flow as Deutsche Bank (DB 34.28, -1.70) and Barclays (BCS 12.07, -0.54) fell 4.7% and 4.3% respectively.
Homebuilders ran to session highs following this morning’s better than expected new home sales number, but were unable to hold those levels. New home sales in May hit an annualized rate of 369,000, which is up from April's unrevised rate of 343,000, and better than the rate of 350,000 that had been broadly expected. The SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF (XHB 19.55, -0.30) lost 1.5%.
Health care stocks were under pressure as markets await the Supreme Court’s decision on the constitutionality of Obamacare. With the Supreme Court issuing its last opinions of the term on June 28, an announcement will occur in the next couple of days. Athena Healthcare (ATHN 78.38, -0.68), Accretive Health (AH 11.16, -0.76), and CVS Caremark (CVS 45.20, -0.70) will all be in play on the announcement.
Chesapeake Energy (CHK 17.03, -1.58) and Encana Corp. (ECA 19.04, -0.82) saw large losses following reports the two companies together attempted to suppress land prices. The companies reportedly discussed ways to prevent bidding against one another in at least nine perspective deals in Michigan.
One bright spot in today’s selloff was the fertilizer sector which was upgraded at Dahlman Rose. CF Industries (CF 183.66, +5.97), Potash Corp. (POT 41.01, +0.67), and Mosaic (MOS 51.10, +0.52) were among those who saw strong gains. The sector’s upgrade comes at a time when grain prices continue to climb amid dry weather in key crop areas.
Treasuries saw a solid advance as buying dropped the 10-yr yield 6.4 basis points to 1.608%. Today’s aggressive buying flattened the yield curve as the 2-10-yr spread narrowed to 130.5 basis points.
The Dollar Index saw modest strength, closing up 0.2% at 82.45. Gains were strongest against the euro and the Australian dollar at 0.5% and 0.6% respectively. The Japanese yen was the biggest beneficiary from today’s flight to safety, gaining 1.5% against both the euro and the Australian dollar.
Tuesday will see the Case-Shiller 20-city Index released at 9 am ET and consumer confidence cross the wires at 10 am ET. Treasury will auction $35 bln 2-yr notes.DJ30 -138.12 NASDAQ -56.26 SP500 -21.30 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 646/1.45 bln/1870 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 712/753.7 mln/2346
3:30 pm : Crude oil spent its entire pit session in negative territory, dipping as low as $78.01 per barrel in afternoon action. However, the energy component came off its lows as it inched higher into the close. Crude ultimately settled down 0.7% at $79.18 per barrel. It is worth noting that according to reports, the European Union formally approved a ban on Iranian oil that will take effect on July 1. On the other hand, natural gas continued last week's advance, touching a session high of $2.72 per MMBtu. It trended slightly lower for the remainder of the session, but still finished pit trade with a 2.3% gain at $2.69 per MMBtu.
Precious metals inched higher in morning trade and picked up steam around noon despite the strong dollar. Buyers reacted to signs of a worsening Eurozone debt crisis as Greece's newly appointed finance minister resigned and Cyprus formally asked the European Union for help. Gold touched a session high of $1589.00 per ounce and closed just below that level at $1588.00 for a gain of 1.4%. Silver popped to a session high of $27.59 per ounce moments before it settled with a gain of 3.1% at $27.50 per ounce. The European Union Summit will take place later this week, and should have an impact on action in the precious metals market.DJ30 -127.49 NASDAQ -49.99 SP500 -19.18 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 624/1.15 bln/1870 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 682/468.6 mln/2392
2:00PM Microsoft confirms plan to acquire Yammer for $1.2 bln in cash (MSFT) 29.79 -0.90 : Microsoft Corp. and Yammer confirm definitive agreement under which Microsoft will acquire Yammer, a provider of enterprise social networks, for $1.2 billion in cash. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approval.
11:53AM Semiconductor Hldrs slips slightly under two week low at 30.91 -- session low 30.89 (SMH) 30.89 -1.02 : Weighing on the sector are: BRCM -5.7%, LRCX -4%, KLAC -3.3%, ALTR -3.3%, MCHP -3.1%, XLNX -2.9%, INTC -2.7%, NVDA -2.7%, MRVL -2.6%, LLTC -2.4%. The SMH needs to sustain a push back through intraday resistances at 31.07 and 31.19 to begin to improve today's negative pattern. Next support for the SMH is in the 30.70/30.64 area.
11:00AM Seagate Tech and DensBits announce strategic agreement for development of solid state drives for consumer and enterprise markets (STX) 22.81 -0.53 : Co and DensBitch technologies have announced today a strategic agreement for the development of low-cost, high-performance Solid State Drives for the consumer and enterprise markets. In conjunction with the agreement, Seagate has made an undisclosed equity investment in DensBits. Seagate and DensBits are joining forces, to develop future products that are intended to provide customers with significant cost savings, extremely high reliability, and unparalleled performance. Under the agreement, DensBits' Memory Modem controller technology will be integrated with Seagate's various storage technologies to power a wide range of consumer and enterprise applications including 3 bits/cell 1Xnm Flash-based consumer-grade SSD, and 2 bits/cell 1Xnm Flash-based enterprise-grade SSD.
Marvell (MRVL) announced that its Wideband Code Division Multiple Access single-chip solution, the PXA968, is powering the Samsung (SSNLF) GALAXY Xcover.
Ciena Corp. (CIEN) announced that the Japan-U.S. Cable Network is upgrading its trans-Pacific submarine network with Ciena's coherent 100 Gigabits per second technology.
Sigma Designs (SIGM) announced that its chipset has been selected by VIZIO for its new ultra wide Cinemawide HDTVs.
Socket Mobile (SCKT) announced that Basis Design has certified the Socket Bluetooth Cordless Hand Scanner as the barcode scanner of choice for its Barcode Essentials application for Apple's (AAPL) iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.
Canaccord Genuity upgraded Nvidia (NVDA $12.85 -0.15) to Buy from Hold and raised their tgt to $16 from $13 saying the co appears positioned to offset near-term PC weakness through Tegra strength and Kepler revenues that were guided by limited 28nm wafer supply, not PC demand. In-line results should distinguish NVDA from other PC-weighted names that appear likely to have near-term number cuts.
10:45 am Technology shares sell off as market falls
The tech sector is trading lower today, trailing losses in the broader market. Semiconductors are showing relative weakness with the Philly Semi Index trading 2.5% lower. VECO (-6.7%) is a notable laggard in that chip index. Among other major indices, the SPY is trading 1.6% lower today, while the QQQ is down 1.7% and the NASDAQ is trading 1.8% lower on the session. Among tech bellwethers, QCOM (-3.1%) is showing notable weakness.
There were no earnings of note in the tech space this morning. In news, QSFT (+5.3%) received proposal from a strategic bidder to acquire all of the outstanding shares of common stock for $27.50 per share in cash. Elsewhere, a US Judge has ended dispute between AAPL (-1.3%) and GOOG's (-1.8%) Motorola Mobility over patents, according to reports.
Among notable analyst upgrades this morning, CEL (-6.4%) was upgraded to Buy at UBS, SNDK (-0.1%) was upgraded to Buy at Goldman, and NVDA (-1.3%) was upgraded to Buy at Canaccord. While in downgrades, RIMM (-4.7%) was downgraded to Underweight at Morgan Stanley. SNX (-1.7%) is the notable name in tech scheduled to report quarterly results today after the close.
I don't mean to get too personal when I asked about what percentage of your available cash was already invested. What I was trying to say is that everyone's hopes and expectations are colored by their current investment weighting. RtS |
