Before the bell: Futures steady ahead of payroll reportWal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) is holding its annual shareholder meeting Friday.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs will deliver his keynote speech Monday June 9 and may unveil then an iPhone that works with third-generation, or 3G, wireless networks, which are much faster than current AT&T (NYSE: T)'s network as Apple tries to lure business users from Research in Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM) BlackBerry users and reach more international customers. If the iPhone was at first positioned as a consumer phone, the business segment is too lucrative to avoid, not to mention that many overseas customers are used to 3G networks.
Verizon Wireless has agreed Thursday to buy Alltel Corp. for $5.9 billion, which would make it by far the largest cellular carrier in the U.S. Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) and Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ). The deal comes just seven months after Alltel was taken private by TPG Capital and a unit of Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS). Together, they would have some 80 million subscribers, surpassing AT&T (NYSE: T)'s 71 million.
In quite an odd indictment, not often seen in white-collar investigations, federal prosecutors may have not only charged Broadcom (NASDAQ: BRCM) co-founder Henry T. Nicholas III in one of the largest stock-option backdating cases in U.S. history, but also with drugging his business associates, hiring prostitutes and maintaining a drug warehouse that grabbed headlines. Spiking drinks with ecstasy??? How bizarre is that? Defense attorney Gregory Craig said the only thing a defense attorney can say, that Nicholas was innocent and would prevail.
In deal news, chip equipment manufacturer ASM International (NASDAQ: ASMI) said it received an unsolicited offer of $400 million to $500 million for two of its business units from Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT). Shares of ASM up were higher Dutch trading.
General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE)'s NBC-TV unit nearly sold out its inventory of ads for the coming fall season, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) "has developed a new fuel cell hybrid, a green car powered by hydrogen and electricity, that can travel more than twice the distance of its predecessor model without filling up, the automaker said Friday."
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