Stronger Opening

Stocks appear set to open higher
Monday in front of the FOMC meeting tomorrow.

Action Performance
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posted
Q1 net of 45 cents a share, beating analysts’ estimates of 25 cents a share.
Earnings also were better than the same quarter a year ago, which was a loss of 1 cent a
share.

According to a report in the Wall
Street Journal
, Philip Morris
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is looking to sell Miller Brewing which
could record a sale of as much as $5 billion.

Palm
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released its new
i705 which has “always on” e-mail, a web browser and AOL IM. This new
Palm is looking to compete with the Blackberry, which is manufactured by Research
In Motion
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.

Alberta Energy
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has agreed to
be acquired by Pan Canadian Energy
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for $41.66 a share.

Bunge Limited’s
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lock-up expires
today.

Xerox
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reported a Q4 loss of
$4 million, or 1 cent a share, in line with analysts’ estimates according to a
survey taken by Thomson Financial/First Call.

Prudential Securities upgraded T. Rowe
Price Group
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from Hold to Buy and raised the price target on the
company from $34 to $44.

Beckman Coulter
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posted a 12%
increase in Q4 earnings. Earnings rose to $48.3 million, or 75 cents a share,
compared with $43 million, or 69 cents, for the same quarter a year ago. Analysts
surveyed by Thomson Financial/First Call were expecting 75 cents with a range
between 73 to 77 a share.

UBS Warburg lowered its rating on
Eaton Vance
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EV |
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from Buy to Hold, citing valuation as EV is nearing the
firm’s
price target of $43.

Micron Technology’s
(
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bid for
South Korea’s Hynix Semiconductors’ core assets has run into some snags
according to a report from Reuters.

The British Airways and American
Airlines
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merger talks have collapsed

Robertson Stephens initiated Itron
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with a Buy rating and put a price target of $31 on the wireless data acquisition
company.