Before the bell 6-6-07: BKC, GES, WFMI, EBAY, SIRI ...

Posted Jun 6th 2007 8:55AM by Melly Alazraki
Filed under: Before the Bell, Major Movement, Earnings Reports, Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades, Deals, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Apple Inc (AAPL), eBay (EBAY), Daimler (DAI), Ford Motor (F), General Motors (GM), XM Satellite Radio (XMSR), Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI), McDonald's (MCD), Whole Foods Market (WFMI), Wendy's Intl (WEN), Burger King Hldgs (BKC)

Main market news here.

Burger King Holdings Inc. (NYSE: BKC) challenged competitors McDonald's and Wendy's yesterday as it announced thousands of its restaurants in the United States and Canada will now be open until midnight or later every day. Burger King also plans to add as many as 250 new stores in Asia in the next five years.

Guess? Inc. (NYSE: GES) shares are up 6.2% in pre-market trading (8:00 a.m.) after company reported quarterly profit that beat analysts' expectations by a wide margin. Guess? saw double-digit revenue growth across all of its businesses, and raised its fiscal 2008 earnings view.

Today, the heads of General Motors (NYSE: GM), Ford (NYSE: F)and the Chrysler Group (still owned by DaimlerChrysler) have a series of meetings on Capitol Hill to discuss manufacturing issues, including measures to raise fuel economy standards.

Yesterday, the Federal Trade Commission decided to file a lawsuit to block the merger of Whole Foods Market (NASDAQ: WFMI) and Wild Oats Markets Inc. (NASDAQ: OATS). The companies said they would fight the FTC in court. Whole Foods was also downgraded to Equal-Weight from Overweight on the decision. WFMI shares are down 1.3% in pre-market trading (8:16).

To stay in problematic merger news, yesterday Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) and XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: XMSR) said they have hired a high-profile public affairs firm, Quinn Gillespie & Associates LLC, to lobby the federal government on their proposed merger. Sirius also announced yesterday it has obtained a $250 million senior secured term loan commitment from Morgan Stanley.

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) yesterday said it will begin auctioning advertising airtime on 2,300 participating U.S. radio stations, directly competing with Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG).

Allan Farley of TheStreet.com thinks you should sell Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and buy Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) as he expects Microsoft to outperform Apple by a wide margin in the next six to 12 months. This may be a sound advice considering Apple reached an all-time high yesterday. Or maybe it could just keep going!

Tags: aapl, bkc, dcx, ebay, f, ges, gm, goog, mcd, msft, oats, siri, wen, wfmi, xmsr