Mega Merger Monday
Stocks
are flat in choppy trading with the market stuck in a trading range for the past
month. Spanish telecom carrier Telefonica
announced a $5.85 billion deal to purchase BellSouth’s
(
BLS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) Latin
American assets to become the biggest operator in this growing region.
Eastman Kodak
(
EK |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) announced a deal to acquire digital print division of
Germany’s Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG. Kodak also cut operating earnings by
17 cents due to the acquisition. The deal is valued at about $150 million.
General Electric said it
will sell about 118 million shares to raise $3.8 billion. GE didn’t specifically
state the reason but many anticipate the funds from the sale would go towards
Vivendi Unversal
(
V |
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News |
PowerRating) shareholders. WalMart
(
WMT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) said it
expects to reach March sales forecasts of 5% increase for its same-store sales.
| Dow | +24.70 |
10620.39 |
| S&P 500 |
+0.37 | 1157.24 |
| Nasdaq | -2.86 | 2044.45 |
The day’s leading sectors are
Internet
(
GIN.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +1.29%, Oil
(
OIX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +0.84%, Energy
(
DXE.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +0.84%, Oil Services
(
OSX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) +0.73%.Â
Weak today are Hardware
(
GHA.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -0.72%, Semis
(
SOX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) -0.64%,Â
No Economic news releases
today.
10-year Notes are +95
at 116 295
Dollar is 0.06 at 88.29
Gold is -1.50 at 400.10
Crude Oil is -0.13 at
37.13
Euro is -0.16 at 123.54
Volume is 539,000,000 on
the NYSE, and 940,000,000 on the Nasdaq.
Market breadth is positive.
| NYSEÂ | Issues | Â |
| Advancing | 1813 | Up Vol      293 |
| Declining | 1301 | Down Vol  223 |
| Ratio | 1.38 | 1.31 |
| Nasdaq |  |  |
| Advancing | 1641 | Up Vol     413 |
| Declining | 1379 | Dow Vol   390 |
| Ratio | 1.20 | 1.05 |
Top Dow stocks are:
Caterpillar [CAT|CAT],
+2.27%Â at 78.09, United Tech
(
UTX |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), +1.56% at 91.36, Proctor
Gamble [PG|PG]
+1.12% at 102.96, WalMart [WMT|WMT],
+1.05% at 60.91.
Stocks in the news:
J.M. Smucker
(
SJM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) will pay $840
million or $25 a share for International Multifoods
(
IMC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) . Combined,
total sales would exceed $2.4 billion and would enable Smuckers to save about
$50 million by 2007
The Justice Department initiated a criminal
inquiry into allegations that Titan
(
TTN |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) improperly paid foreign
officials. This may delay Lockheed Martin’s
(
LMT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) planned Titan
acquisition if conditions of the merger are not satisfied by March 16th.
SigmaTron International
(
SGMA |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
dropped 20% after reporting lower revenue of $23.9 million with earnings at $1.2
million. The company cited pricing pressures from customers and increases in
insurance and regulatory costs as the main reasons for the lower earnings.
Biomet
(
BMET |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) decided to
purchase spinal surgery products maker Interpore International
(
BONZ |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
for $280 million. Biomet will pay $14.50 a share and the deal would not
contribute to its earnings until 2005.