Stocks Set To Open Up

Stocks are set to open higher Friday.

Pediatrix Medical
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reaffirmed
its Q4 outlook of 39 cents to 40 cents a share. The company also announced that
it has settled a securities class action lawsuit.

Goldman Sachs lowered estimates on
CIENA
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after the company lowered FY02 revenues and earnings
yesterday. Goldman lowered estimates to $1 billion, or 28 cents a share,
from $1.58 billion, or 40 cents a share.

Bristol-Myers
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was upgraded
by Goldman Sachs from Market Outperform to Trading Buy.

Robertson Stephens downgraded KPMG
Consulting
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from Market Perform to Market Underperform.

Microtune
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priced 7 million
shares in a secondary offering at $23 per share.

ABN Amro downgraded BEI Technologies
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from Add to Hold due to a short-term negative outlook.

Robertson Stephens upgraded Celera
Genomics
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from Market Perform to Buy, citing the company has made
significant progress in becoming a fully integrated drug discovery company from
a genomics database provider.

Quest Diagnostics
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was
granted non-exclusive license from Orchid Biosciences
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for the
company’s use of ORCH’s proprietary SNP-IT technology.

Aetna
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said it will slash
6000 jobs and will take a Q4 charge of $125 million to cover the cuts.

The CPI number for November was
unchanged. However, the core rate increase 0.4%, which was higher than expected.