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Before the bell 5-21-07: T, VIA, PFE, YHOO, WMT ...

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Main market news here.

AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) is accelerating its rebranding of Cingular, taking down signs with the orange logo and phasing out the name. All this in an effort to raise AT&T's profile ahead of the launch of Apple Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AAPL) much anticipated and hyped iPhone.

Studio estimates the animated movie "Shrek the Third" take over its first weekend at $122 million, breaking the franchise's own record for best debut ever for an animated film, shooting past "Shrek 2" record of $108 million. The movie was produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount, both divisions of Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA). This Friday, however, Disney (NYSE: DIS) is releasing "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," which could surpass "Shrek the Third" record.

Struggling Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) is shuffling the top jobs. The company's CFO, Alan Levin, had resigned, and the president of global research and development, John LaMattina, would retire. Pfizer had some disappointments in research and development over the past few years as analysts are skeptical its current pipeline would be generate sufficient sales to compensate for loss of revenue due to expiring patents on key drugs.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
(NYSE: WMT) is pulling the Mark Eisen designer line from several hundred of the more than 3,000 U.S. stores that carried it, the Wall Street Journal reported, as the retailer tries to clear out stocks of unsold clothing.

MarketWatch quotes the Sunday Telegraph, saying it reported that Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) could possibly offer $1 billion offer on U.K. social networking website Bebo. The British newspaper cited "Silicon Valley gossip."

Hologic Inc. (NASDAQ: HOLX) agreed to buy Cytyc Corp. (NASDAQ: CYTC) for $6.2 billion in cash and stock. Hologic will pay $16.50 in cash and 0.52 of its own shares for each Cytyc share, which at Friday's prices would value Cytyc at $46.46, a 33% premium. HOLX shares are up 2.4% in pre-market, CYTC shares up 33.2%.

Citigroup upgraded Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) and Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) from Hold to Buy.
CIBC kept its rating of Sector Outperform on Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX), but lowered the target price from $40 to $35.
Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice
DJIA+30.6910,464.40
NASDAQ+6.872,176.05
S&P 500+4.981,110.63

Last updated: November 25, 2009: 05:46 PM

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