Before the bell: Futures higher ahead of housing dataGoldman Sachs cut its view of U.S. department stores to Neutral from Attractive. Specifically, the broker downgraded J.C. Penney (NYSE: JCP) and Nordstrom Inc. (NYSE: JWN) to Neutral from Buy after its commodity team upped 2008 oil price forecasts to $149 a barrel.
Still, Goldman upgraded TJX Cos. (NYSE: TJX) to Buy from Neutral and removed Kohl's Corp. (NYSE: KSS) from its conviction-buy list in favor of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT).
By now I'm getting confused with all the deals Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is signing with wireless operators to sell the iPhone in different countries around the world. I believe the past two weeks we heard of at least two deals, including one with a S.Korean company. Today, French wireless operator Orange said it has signed a deal to sell its iPhone in the Middle East, Africa and several European countries. Orange will be the exclusive iPhone provider in Belgium and Romania. It seems that by now Apple's got the world covered.
General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) is apparently considering launching its Chevrolet brand in South Korea. In its attempt to stay ahead of fast growing Toyota (NYSE: TM), GM will try to capture a larger share of S.Korea's growing market for imported cars.
As Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) is trying to keep Icahn off its board back, it keeps talking about a search advertising partnership with Google Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG), according to a Reuters source.
And Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) also keeps to other business these times. The software giant joined The One Laptop Per Child project as the green-and-white "XO" computers now can run Windows in addition to their homegrown Linux-based interface. This could further the cause of the organization.
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