Fraud At Disney? That’s What This Suit Alleges

Stocks were higher on merger activity.

Duke Energy
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is buying Cinergy [
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. Duke will
swap 1.56 shares of its common stock for each Cinergy share.

Ameritrade
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and ETrade
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are both trading
higher on merger speculation. The Wall Street Journal reports that ETrade
has expressed an interest in buying Ameritrade. Trader talk: the deal talk mans
that business is slow in retail trading. A study by Forrester Research said that
falling commission prices will eventually lead to zero-profit online trades.

After the close, Priceline
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beat by a penny.

McDonald’s
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U.S. same store sales rose 4.7%; globally, sales
rose 2.8%.

Hillenbrand
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missed and cut ’05 estimates.

King Pharmaceuticals
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beat for Q1.

GM announced its regular .50 quarterly dividend. There is speculation
this may be cut.

A NYSE seat holder–William Higgins–filed suit to block the merger between
the NYSE and Archipelago.

Stanley Gold and Roy Disney are suing Disney for fraud regarding the
CEO selection process. The suit seeks a new vote. DIS closed at 27.06, up 0.17.

ChevronTexaco
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will drop "Texaco" from its name to reduce
confusion.

Tuesday after the bell, look for Cisco
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to report.
Estimates are 0.22 with revenues of $6.15 billion.

Strong sectors were:  Brokers
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+3.23%   
Oil Services 

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+1.74%   

Weak sectors were:  Internet
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-0.30% 

Dow +38.94 10,384.34
Nasdaq +12.32 1979.67
S&P 500 +7.49 1178.84

The dollar was -0.03 at
84.58

Crude Oil was +1.07 at
52.03

Gold was +0.30 at 425.80

ce=”Arial” size=”2″ face=”Arial”>Volume was 1.36 billion on the NYSE and
1.47 billion on the Nasdaq.

Market breadth was positive.

NYSE Issues
Advancing 2221 Up Vol 1334
Declining 1073 Down Vol 381
2.06 3.50
Nasdaq
Advancing 1935 Up Vol 908
Declining 1127 Down Vol 501
1.71 1.81

Brice Wightman