Before the bell: Futures higher following deal news; investors await Fed move

Kirk Kerkorian's Tracinda Corp. is planning to offer $8.50 per share for up to 20 million shares of Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F), a 13.3% premium over Friday's close. Tracinda now owns 100 million Ford shares, or 4.7% of the outstanding stock, which would increase to 5.6% when the offer is completed. Ford shares climbed over 6.5% in premarket trading. The deal, announced recently, is helping stock futures' upward movement.

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) reported a 9.8% rise in its first-quarter earnings as its wireless division attracted more customers than other carriers. Excluding items, earnings were 61 cents per shares, inline with estimates. Revenue rose 5.5% to $23.8 billion, also inline with estimates. VZ shares are up 1.9% in premarket trading.

According to The New York Post, Barry Diller and Liberty Media (NASDAQ: LINTA) Chairman John Malone are continuing to talk about "a deal that would trade one or more of IAC Interactive (NASDAQ: IACI)'s assets for Liberty's ownership stake in IAC." Diller is also "expected to meet with his board this week to restart the process of breaking up his company into five separate pieces."

Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) shares are up nearly 2% in premarket trading as the world's largest credit-card processor is expected to post quarterly results late in the day and report strong profits for the second quarter.

Harley-Davidson, Inc. (NYSE: HOG) raised the quarterly dividend 10% to 33 cents a share, payable June 20 to holders of record June 5.

The New York Times reports that Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) researchers "have a software technology intended to do for digital images on the Web what the company's original PageRank software did for searches of Web pages." VisualRank is an algorithm that blends "image-recognition software methods with techniques for weighting and ranking images that look most similar."

And the latest on the 3G iPhone Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is expected to launch soon comes from a company, Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry), which has reportedly landed orders for the assembly of the much talked about iPhone. Shipments, it is said, are to begin in June this year, for three million units, but total shipment is expected to be 24-25 million units throughout its life-cycle. Foxconn is currently the sole manufacturer of first-generation iPhones.