A drop in the number of newly laid-off workers and upbeat remarks from bellwether Cisco Systems injected confidence about an economic recovery ahead of this morning’s highly expected October jobs report, propelling the Dow average to its first close above 10,000 in two weeks. 

Cisco Systems’ (NASDAQ:CSCO) CEO John Chambers said he now sees a global economic recovery, fueling a rebound in the company’s sales this quarter.  The Dow average jumped 203 points, or 2%, while the tech-heavy NASDAQ, riding high on Cisco’s forecast, bolted up 50 points or about 2.4%. 

All ten S&P 500 industry groups ended in the green, with banking shares advancing 2.6% as analyst Dick Bove of Rochdale Securities noted the group will double by the end of 2010.  Technology shares advanced 2.2%.  Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) jumped 5.4% to $43.85 and Microchip Technology Inc. (NASDAQ:MCHP) gained 3.9% to $25.37 after it was raised to “buy"

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Microchip Technology Inc.’s (MCHP) second-quarter earnings beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2 cents. Revenues beat the consensus by 3.8%. Both revenues and EPS were significantly better than the guidance provided by management.   Revenues   Revenues of $226.7 million was up 17.5% sequentially and down 16% year over year. Revenues came in over the high-end of management’s guidance range of 206-214 million.   The microcontroller segment did extremely well in the last quarter, with all the three categories (8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit) growing very strongly on a sequential basis. Flash microcontrollers made up the bulk of the shipments in the last quarter. Associated application development systems also did extremely well, with 38,806 units sold, a record for the company. The segment generated over 81% of revenues in the last quarter.   The memory business (mainly serial EEPROMs that support the microcontroller business) was up double-digits on a ...

Earlier this month, Atmel Corp. (ATML) reported revenues of $284.5 million in its second quarter, up 5% sequentially but down 32% year over year.

Revenues reported in the quarter were negatively impacted by reduced demand resulting from the global economic weakness experienced in all electronic markets since the fourth quarter. In addition, reduced inventory levels held by distributors also resulted in low shipments levels compared to prior periods.

Gross margin declined to 32.3% from 35.1% in the previous quarter and 36.5% in the year-ago quarter, mainly due to a planned reduction in factory utilization in two of the company’s wafer fabrication facilities.

On a GAAP basis, net loss was $12.4 million or 3 cents per share, compared to a net income of $3.6 million or 1 cent per share in the previous quarter and a net loss of $4.9 million or 1 cent per share in the year-ago quarter. On a non-GAAP

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Earlier this month, Atmel Corporation (ATML) reported revenues of $284.5 million in the second quarter of 2009, up 5% sequentially but down 32% year over year. Based in San Jose, California, Atmel designs, develops, manufactures, and markets a range of semiconductor integrated circuits (IC) products for communication, consumer electronics, and the computer market. Revenues reported in the quarter were negatively impacted by reduced demand resulting from the global economic weakness experienced in all electronic markets since the fourth quarter of 2008. In addition, reduced inventory levels held by distributors also resulted in low shipment levels compared to prior periods. Gross margin declined to 32.3% from 35.1% in the previous quarter and 36.5% in the year-ago quarter, mainly due to a planned reduction in factory utilization in two of the company’s wafer fabrication facilities. On a GAAP basis, net loss was $12.4 million or 3 ...

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Monday August 24, 2009

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The holiday season is a time to celebrate with family and friends, not to worry about how to pay for holiday gifts. With that in mind, Sears (NASDAQ: SHLD) and Kmart are helping customers plan ahead and save — so they can more fully enjoy the holidays — by bringing them the Sears and Kmart Christmas Club card.

The board of directors of Westlake Chemical Corporation (NYSE: WLK) declared on Friday a dividend of 5.75 cents per share, payable on September 17, 2009, to stockholders of record on September 2, 2009. This represents an increase of 1/2 cent per share,

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Microchip Technology Inc. (MCHP) yesterday reported net sales of $192.9 million for the fiscal first quarter, up 11.4% sequentially, surpassing management’s guidance of an increase of 8% – 10% sequentially. However, revenues were down 28.1% year over year.

Microcontroller businesses increased 11.9% sequentially. In particular, 16-bit microcontroller revenues were up 15.7% sequentially and 33.3% year over year.  Analog business was up 12.2% sequentially.

GAAP net income came in at $27.4 million or 15 cents per share. Non-GAAP net income came in at 19 cents, easily beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 14 cents.

Non-GAAP gross margin came in at 51.4%, up from 49.3% in the previous quarter driven by higher production activity in the fabs, continued cost reduction efforts from global manufacturing operations and favorable product mix from the sale of proprietary products. However, gross margin was down from 61.6% reported a year ago.

June quarter was a rebound from the March quarter,

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Microchip Technology Inc. (MCHP) provided a first-quarter earnings guidance above analysts' view, as the chipmaker sees signs of improving profit margins and demand.

Shares rose about 5.5% this afternoon.

Microchip expects a profit of 17 cents to 18 cents per share, excluding special items, for the quarter ending Jun 30. Analysts expect 13 cents per share, which is up a penny over the past month.

Quarterly sales are expected to increase between 8% and 10% from last quarter's levelsm, which imply revenue of $187.2 million to $190.6 million.

The consensus estimate for the fiscal year ending March 2010 has moved higher by a penny to 68 cents per share in the past 7 days.

This Zacks #3 Rank ("Hold") company is currently trading on volume of 3.7 million shares, which is lower than its daily average of 4.6 million.

"MCHP" Free Stock Analysis: Buy? Sell? Hold?...

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL - May 12, 2009 - Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Curtiss-Wright Corp. (CW), Microchip Technology Inc. (MCHP), The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc (RBS), Verisign Inc. (VRSN) and Celera Corp. (CRA).

Get the most recent insight from Zacks Equity Research with the free Profit from the Pros newsletter: http://at.zacks.com/?id=4579.

Here are highlights from Monday's Analyst Blog:

Curtiss-Wright Feels the Squeeze

Curtiss-Wright Corp. (CW) was caught in a classic economic squeeze during Q1-09: Sales were off a bit, while expenses generally went the other way; consequently, EPS were down a lot.

Net Sales were

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Microchip Technology Inc. (MCHP, Hold) shares are off nearly 7% in early trading today following the company's fiscal Q4 and year-end results yesterday. Q4 revenues of $173.3 million were in-line with our $173.2 million expectation, while non-GAAP EPS of $0.15 came ahead of our estimate by a penny.Although revenues came in better than the mid-point of the company's guidance and non-GAAP EPS at the high end of guidance, Q4 revenues were down nearly 10% sequentially and 33% year-over-year. The company stated that it is beginning to see improvements in overall business conditions, but it is clear that MCHP is bearing the brunt of the global economic slowdown, and the lack of specific forward guidance implies that revenues may remain at the current depressed levels near-term.The company, however, provided estimates for "internal" purposes and plans for Q1 revenues of $182 million with non-GAAP EPS of ...

Highlighted stocks include: Alcoa Inc. (...