Before the bell: AAPL, AMGN, INTC, KFT, SUNW ...

Main market news: Further selling indicated

The Wall Street Journal gives a report card to iWork, Apple Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AAPL) Microsoft Corp.'s (NASDAQ: MSFT) Office equivalent. To summarize, Walter S. Mossberg says that while iWork '08 is "capable of turning out sophisticated and attractive word-processing, presentation and spreadsheet documents," but "isn't as powerful or versatile as Microsoft Office."

Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN) said yesterday it will cut up 12% to 14% of its work force and has lowered its profit guidance to between $4.13 a share and $4.23 from $4.28 previously as sales were less than expected on its amnesia drug. Amgen shares are down 1.36% in premarket trading (8:06 a.m.).

Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) was upgraded by Credit Suisse from Underperform to Outperform with the analyst upping the target price from $22.5 to $35.

The Wall Street Journal speculates [subscription required] that Kraft (NYSE: KFT) may sell its Post cereals unit for as much as $3 billion. One potential buyer may be Pepsi (NYSE: PEP).

The Register speculates on what Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: SUNW) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) may announce as their operating system agreement in their joint press conference later today.

Thomas & Betts Corp. (NYSE: TNB) announced late yesterday it is buying Lamson & Sessions Co. (NYSE: LMS) for approximately $426.6 million. The two sides valued the transaction at $450 million.