From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm : The stock market was down more than 1% in late afternoon trade, but a strong rally into the close came amid chatter that Italy and Spain could get some additional short-term financial support and speculation that the cancellation of an EU Summit press conference could mean a major development.
Headlines related to the EU Summit also drove action ahead of the open as reports contradicted Germany's willingness to acquiesce to calls for the country to share debt liabilities. Caution amid the meeting prompted many participants to apply pressure.
Tech and Financials weighed heavily on the broad market for most of the day. Tech was down about 2% at its lowest level, but managed to nearly halve that. Financials overcame a loss of well in excess of 1% to settle the day down only 0.2%.
Energy outperformed for the third straight session. It had kept losses limited for most of the day, but bounded higher alongside the broad market in the session’s closing minutes. It settled with a 0.6% gain. Energy’s strength came despite oil’s retreat to a 3.2% loss at $77.73 per barrel.
News that the Supreme Court upheld President Obama's Health Care Law undercut Health Care stocks, along with the broad market, earlier in the day, but the sector was able to rebound so that it finished the day with a less severe loss of 0.3%.
Economic data featured a weekly initial jobless claims count total of 386,000, which is almost exactly what had been expected, on average, among economists polled by Briefing.com. The latest tally is also down slightly from the upwardly revised prior week count of 392,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to about 3.30 million from 3.31 million.
Separately, the third estimate of first quarter GDP showed growth of 1.9%, just as it had before. No revisions had been expected. However, the first quarter GDP Deflator was revised higher in the third estimate to reflect a 2.0% increase in the face of calls for it to continue to point to an increase of 1.7%.
Weakness among stocks had helped Treasuries trade with strength before rolling over as the stock market rallied. An auction of 7-year Notes drew a Bid-to-Cover of 2.64, Dollar Demand of $76.6 billion, and an Indirect Bidder participation rate of 42.0%. For comparison, the past auction attracted a Bid-to-Cover of 2.83, Dollar Demand of $82.1 billion, and an Indirect Bidder rate at 38.2%, while an average of the last six auctions results in a Bid-to-Cover of 2.81, Dollar Demand of $81.5 billion, and an Indirect Bidder rate of 39.9%.DJ30 -24.75 NASDAQ -25.83 NQ100 -1.1% R2K -0.1% SP400 +0.3% SP500 -2.81 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 957/1.75 bln/1538 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1701/897 mln/1300
3:30 pm : Crude oil tumbled deeper into the red as stocks suffered from weakened sentiment. The energy component fell off its session high of $80.00 per barrel set in morning action to set a session low of $77.20 per barrel before it settled for a 3.2% loss at $77.73 per barrel. Natural gas touched a session high of $2.83 per MMBtu, but quickly slipped following a bigger-than-expected inventory build of 57 bcf. A slight rally heading into the close helped reduce losses to 2.9% for the session as prices settled at $2.72 per MMBtu.
Precious metals were under selling pressure for their entire pit session. Gains by the greenback didn’t help their case. Although both gold and silver popped to respective session highs of $1574.30 per ounce and $27.00 per ounce following weaker-than-anticipated initial claims data, the metals quickly tumbled deeper into negative territory as the EU Summit proceeded. Gold settled 1.8% lower at $1550.30 per ounce, just above its session low of $1547.60 per ounce. Silver dropped to a session low of $26.10 per ounce just before it settled for a 2.7% loss at $26.28 per ounce. As an aside, analysts at Morgan Stanley lowered their precious metals price forecasts for 2012 through 2014.DJ30 -117.73 NASDAQ -47.24 SP500 -12.68 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 595/1.24 bln/1885 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1000/465 mln/1985
6:18PM Apple Senior Vice President of Hardware Bob Mansfield to retire (AAPL) 569.05 -5.45 : Co announced that Bob Mansfield, Apple's senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, will retire and the role will be transitioned to Dan Riccio, Apple's vice president of iPad Hardware Engineering, over several months.
4:31PM Ultratech acquires patents from IBM for sumiconductor bumping and packaging (UTEK) 29.56 -0.64 : Co announced that it has acquired the rights to a collection of patents from IBM - these include fundamental patents in packaging such as C4 bumping, Ball Grid Arrays, lead-free solders and 3D packaging. Representing both U.S. and foreign patents, the portfolio includes claims directed at methods of making, at compositions and at structures of semiconductor devices. This acquisition strengthens and broadens Ultratech's offerings to facilitate advanced packaging at the lower device nodes
4:27PM Research In Motion misses by $0.29, misses on revs (RIMM) 9.13 -0.05 : Reports Q1 (May) loss of $0.37 per share, $0.29 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.08); revenues fell 42.7% year/year to $2.81 bln vs the $3.04 bln consensus. Shipments of BlackBerry smartphones were 7.8 million and shipments of BlackBerry PlayBook tablets were approximately 260,000.
BlackBerry 10 smartphone launch now scheduled for Q1 of calendar 2013.
The Company expects the next several quarters to continue to be very challenging for its business based on the increasing competitive environment, lower handset volumes, potential financial and other impacts from the delay of BlackBerry 10, pressure to reduce RIM's monthly infrastructure access fees, and the Company's plans to continue to aggressively drive sales of BlackBerry 7 handheld devices. The Company expects to report an operating loss in the second quarter of fiscal 2013, as RIM continues to invest in marketing programs and continues to work through the transition to BlackBerry 10, as well as the Company's fixed costs being allocated over a lower volume of shipments. This outlook excludes the impact of charges related to the CORE Program. Briefing Note: Q2 Capital IQ consensus is -$0.07.
9:36AM Intel slides back near weekly low at 25.74 and stabilizes -- session low 25.75 (INTC) 25.88 -0.34 : Note that its 200 ema and 200 sma comes into play below at 25.66/25.61.
Riverbed Technology (RVBD) announced that Lighthouse eDiscovery replaced its tape-based backup system with the Riverbed Whitewater cloud storage gateway to improve its backup and disaster recovery processes
7:30AM Qualcomm announced plans to modify its corporate structure; new corporate structure will feature the parent co, Qualcomm Inc., which includes QTL and corporate functions (QCOM) 54.91 : Co announced plans to modify its corporate structure. The corporate structure changes are being implemented in order to enhance Qualcomm's ability to quickly deliver products to its customers, while further protecting and insulating its valuable patent portfolio from any claims resulting from actions and activities by portions of the company other than the Qualcomm Technology Licensing Division (QTL). Qualcomm is not undergoing this restructuring in anticipation, or as part, of spinning out either the QTL or QCT business, nor is this change in response to any third party actions or claims. The new corporate structure will feature the parent company, Qualcomm Incorporated, which includes QTL and corporate functions, as well as most of Qualcomm's patent portfolio; and a new wholly owned subsidiary, Qualcomm Technologies(QTI), which, along with its subsidiaries, will operate substantially all of Qualcomm's research and development activities, as well as product and services businesses, including its semiconductor business, QCT. Qualcomm anticipates that the new corporate structure will become effective during the first fiscal quarter of 2013 and does not expect any change to the way in which it defines its operating segments for financial reporting purposes as a result of this restructuring. |
