Market Roundup (SLE, ALL, EXAM, MOT, AKAM, SYMC, OCLR)

The board of Directors of Sara Lee Corp

announced a 4.5% rise in its quarterly dividend. The company declared a dividend of 11.5 cents per share, up from its earlier dividend of $0.11 per share. The dividend will be payable on December 31 to the shareholders, as of record on December 1. Sara Lee said, "The board decided to accelerate the payment of the dividend by one week so that stockholders can benefit from the lower dividend tax rate that is currently set to expire at calendar year end." Shares of Allstate Corp

dropped about 6% after the company reported weaker-than-expected Q3 results. The company's operating profit dipped 16% y/y to $0.83 per share. Analysts were expecting earnings at $0.95 per share. Bijan Moazami, an insurance analyst at FBR Capital Market said, "Allstate did it again: missing earnings estimates in a light catastrophe quarter." Shares of ExamWorks Group Inc

gained about 6% after the company launched its initial public offering (IPO). The company has priced its offering of 10.3 million shares at $16 per share. US Tech stocks struggled, despite of strong earnings report by various companies. Shares of Motorola

gained about 2.2% after the company posted a rise in its Q3 earnings. Shares of Akamai

also rose about 3.2% after the company reported strong Q3 results. Symantec

also reported better-than-expected Q2 results and issued upbeat projections for its third quarter. However, the shares of Oclaro Inc

tumbled about 38% after the company reported disappointing Q1 results and issued weaker-than-expected revenue projections for the second quarter. The Nasdaq Composite Index lost about 0.3%, while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell about 0.28%. Read more