Closing Bell: The wishy-washy return to Q3 (AA, DDUP, EMC, DNDN, CVX, FSLR, GS)

ALCOA Inc (NYSE: AA) was hit fairly hard on lower commodities prices today. But there is also a tempering of expectations ahead of this week's earnings report from the metals giant. Shares were down over 6% at $9.20 late in the trading day.

Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) also sold off ahead of this week's interim earnings report because oil prices are coming down further and further and as expectations are being tempered. It was lucky that oil stocks held up much better than oil prices with shares down 1.2% at $63.65 late in the trading day.

Data Domain Inc. (NASDAQ: DDUP) keeps getting higher and higher rival bids. Today's higher bid from EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC) came in at close to $2.4 billion or $33.50 per shares. Here is what the buyer, whichever buyer wins, will really be getting. Data Domain shares were up close to 3% at $34.12 late in the trading session.

Dendreon Corp. (NASDAQ: DNDN) was up just over 3% at $24.20 late in the trading session today. The biotech was essentially given an implied doubling price target by an analyst this morning.

First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR) led the solar stocks. A small downgrade from Barclays helped, but the "leveraged oil stock" mentality is starting to win over actual calls now. Shares were down almost 5% at $146.55 late in the session, but that was well above lows.

Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS) was actually up late in the trading day after being lower this morning. This is surprising because of the controversy that its automated trading source code may have been stolen. Shares were up almost 1% at $144.72 late in the trading session.