Lower Opening
Stocks appeared set to open lower Thursday in the wake of the European Central
Bank’s decision to cut
interest rates by 25 basis points, lowering the refinance rate to 4.50%.
Goldman Sachs lowered loss
estimates on Fuel Cell Energy
(
FCEL |
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PowerRating) for FY01 from 55 cents to 45 cents and
FY02 to 30 cents from 50 cents, citing lower spending.
First Union upgraded restaurant
Applebee’s
(
APPB |
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PowerRating) from Buy to Strong Buy and raised the company’s price
target to $36 from $34 a share.
Lehman Brothers analyst Dan Niles cut
Sun Microsystems
(
SUNW |
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PowerRating) estimates for FY02 from $18 billion to $15.9
billion after Sun’s less-than-stellar mid-quarter update yesterday.
Footstar
(
FTS |
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PowerRating) reported a 13.1%
increase in August sales and reaffirmed Q3 numbers will be approximately $1.19 a
share vs. analysts’ consensus of $1.15.
Apollo Group
(
APOL |
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PowerRating) has named
Todd Nelson to CEO, from President.
Riverstone Networks
(
RSTN |
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PowerRating) filed
a breach of contract suit against Tellabs
(
TLAB |
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PowerRating) stating the company did
not make the minimum purchase requirements in the alliance between the two
companies.
Tech Data
(
TECD |
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PowerRating) reported Q2
earnings of 49 cents a share, beating analysts’ estimates by 8 cents a share. The
company also raised Q3 estimates to be in the range of 49 cents to 55
cents while analysts are for 45 cents a share.
International Game Technology
(
IGT |
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PowerRating)
will be replacing Broadvision
(
BVSN |
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PowerRating) on the S&P 500 Index after the
close on Friday.
Goldman Sachs cut estimates on a
number of Infrastructure Software stocks including Veritas Software
(
VRTS |
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PowerRating),
Rational Software
(
RATL |
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PowerRating), Legato Systems
(
LGTO |
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PowerRating) and Mercury
Interactive
(
MERQ |
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PowerRating).