Stocks To Open Mixed
Stocks appear set to open mixed to lower
Tuesday ahead of the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index. Economists
expect the index to show an increase to 117.0 in August from the July number of
116.5.
The Wall Street Journal
reported that
Cox Communications
(
COX |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) held initial talks with AT&T
(
T |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) regarding a potential deal for AT&T broadband unit.
Alltel
(
AT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) said that it has sent a
letter to Centurytel
(
CTL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) asking the company to begin negotiations on its
merger proposal. In the original unsolicited bid, CTL would receive $43 a share,
or .6934 shares of Alltel.
Qwest Communications International
(
Q |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
and Loudcloud
(
LDCL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) have entered an alliance to provide managed Web
services. The collaboration of efforts should generate approximately $260
million.
Doral Finanical
(
DORL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) was
upgraded by UBS Warburg from Buy to Strong Buy.
UBS Warburg also upgraded Neurocrie
Biosciences from Buy to Strong Buy and raised the company’s target price from
$46 to $50.
Merrill Lynch placed Lowe’s
(
LOW |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
on its Focus 1 stock list.
Goldman Sachs lowered estimates on Sun
Microsystems
(
SUNW |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) ahead of the company’s intra-quarter conference.
WR Hambrecht upgraded Marvell
Technologies
(
MRVL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) to Strong Buy from Buy.
H&R Block
(
HRB |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) has entered
into an alliance with AOL Time Warner
(
AOL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), making HRB the premier tax
service provided on AOL.
Energy company Enron
(
ENE |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) named
Greg Whalley President and Chief Operating Officer.
Star Tek
(
SRT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) announced that
David Rosenthal was named Chief Financial Officer upon the retirement of
existing CFO Dennis Swenson.