Market Wrap: The iPad, Now Smaller; VW's Brilliant M&A; Lending Rates Chopped, Diced; Bigger Payrolls Ahead

Market wrap-up for July 5th

End of the Day: Dow Jones down 47.2 to 12,896.67; S&P 500 down 6.4 to 1,367.58; Nasdaq up 0.04 to 2,976.12

The following is a brief summary of events moving markets today:

• Let's just take it down a notch or two here: In a signal that banks are still cautious on overall global growth, both the ECB and The People's Bank of China trimmed rates today, while the Bank of England added £50 billion to an asset buying program.
  
  The ECB trimmed its main refinancing rate and deposit rate by 25 basis points each, to 0.75 percent and zero, respectively. The PBOC cut its main lending rate by 31 basis points to 6 percent and trimmed deposit rates by 25 basis points to 3 percent.
  
  For more on the moves, click here.
  
  
• It's all about the structure: Possibly the best M&A transaction in a while, auto giant Volkswagen will be acquiring the balance of Porsche it doesn't already own in a deal valued north of $5.5 billion. Reports today have the transaction for 50.1 percent of Porsche structured as such: €4.46 billion euro and one VW share. Yes, one share of common Volkswagen stock.
  
  Adding the stock to the mix allows VW to classify the deal as a restructuring instead of a takeover, saving about €900 million of taxes.
  
  The structure of the transaction also allowed VW to proceed with the deal about two-years earlier than originally anticipated.
  
  
• Buying shorts in February?: June ended up being a mixed bag (no pun intended) for retailers due to the early warm weather that hit in February and March, accelerating some consumer purchases. It appears as though Cato (Nasdaq: CATO) set the low-bar with a 10 percent drop in comps, while Nordstrom (NYSE: JWN) saw an 8.1 percent pop and several retailers reported a 7 percent gain.
  
  Overall, Reuters noted a 2.5 percent same-store sales gain in June, its slowest in three years. June 2011 saw a 7.7 percent gain in comps.
  
  For a rundown of June's sales numbers, click here.
  
  
• Payrolls bulge, wallets still thin: According to Automatic Data Processing (NYSE: ADP), 176 thousand payrolls were added in June, easily topping consensus views calling for the addition of just 100 thousand. May's number was bumped up slightly from 133 thousand to 136 thousand.
  
  Employment in the private, service-providing sector rose 160,000 in June, after rising a revised 137,000 in May. Employment in the private, goods-producing sector added 16,000 jobs in June, while manufacturing employment added 4,000, reversing May's decline. Construction employment rose by 8,000 jobs, more than reversing the declines of the two previous months. The financial services sector added 11,000 jobs from May to June.
  
  For more from ADP, click here.
  
  
• The iPad doesn't fall far from the tree: Apple, Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) was rumored to be mulling a smaller iPad tablet since, well, the first one came out (remember questions about the size of the panel?) That chatter was reinforced Thursday with Bloomberg and the WSJ getting in on the act. The device is rumored to have a screen that's less than 8-inches, providing for more competition for Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS), Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN), and others.
  
  For more on the iPad Jr., click here.
  
  
• The best unemployment play around: Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) ripped as CEO Reed Hastings posted a message on his Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) account that monthly viewing exceeded 1 billion hours in June, a new milestone for the company. Firm BTIG calculated users viewed 80 minutes of Netflix content per day, on average, making Netflix at number seven on the list of most watched networks inclusive of broadcast and cable networks, from 15th in the fourth-quarter last year. Numbers also put Netflix at number two among U.S. cable networks.

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