Before the bell: Futures higher as oil drops furtherExxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) is set to face disgruntled shareholders, including members of the Rockefeller family at its annual meeting today. They want to split split Exxon's chairman and chief executive positions. Other proposals include seven about the company's environmental policies.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Bear Stearns (NYSE: BSC) plans to hand over documents to the Securities and Exchange Commission showing that several Wall Street firms, including Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), Citadel Investment Group and Paulson & Co., cut their exposure to Bear in the weeks leading up to its collapse.
United Parcel Service Inc (NYSE: UPS) shares rose in Europe after Merrill Lynch upgraded the company's stock from Neutral to Buy.
Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) suffered a setback late Tuesday when a New York state judge ruled it "engaged in repeated false and deceptive advertising of its promotional credit financing and warranty terms."
Intersting developments in the brewer industry. It seems that SABMiller shares edged higher in Europe as the FT Alphaville blog said the brewer has quietly indicated to InBev that it would consider a bid and prefers a merger of equals rather than the straight forward takeover that InBev executives prefer. Of course, just last week the site reported InBev was going to approach Anheuser-Busch (NYSE: BUD) and it seems InBev prefers BUD over SAB due to higher synergies.
The New York Times wonders what's next for the iPhone. It claims that as the pace of sale Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has reported for the first quarter has been less than it aught in order for Apple to reach its goal, it must therefore mean there will be a new iPhone coming. With the pace of deals Apple is signing with different countries that support 3G, it wouldn't be surprising.
Results are due out of Dollar Tree Stores (NASDAQ: DLTR), TiVo (NASDAQ: TIVO), American Eagle Outfitters (NYSE: AEO) and Men's Wearhouse (NYSE: MW).
Reid Hoffman: LinkedIn will go public (at some point)
Retailers can't wait for Black Friday, open Thursday
Tiffany's serves up solid quarterly earnings
