After a day that saw U.S. equity markets decline in the neighborhood of 2%, U.S. stock futures earlier this morning pointed to a rough start Tuesday as well. News late Monday the Merrill Lynch said it's selling a big slice of its asset-backed securities and $8.5 billion in stock, renewed concerns over the financial sector health. But futures have started creeping upward, ahead of the latest readings on house prices with the Case-Shiller home price index for May and Conference Board reading of consumer confidence for July.Meanwhile, we're still in the middle of earnings season and today
- Colgate Palmolive (NYSE: CL) - Colgate-Palmolive 2Q profit rises 19%,
- BP (NYSE: BP) - BP's Second-Quarter Profit Rises on Record Oil Prices - shares are over 2% higher in premarket trading
- Coach (NYSE: COH) - Weaker dollar helps Coach 4th-quarter results
- Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC), Viacom (NYSE: VIA), Valero Energy Corp. (NYSE: VLO), United States Steel Corp. (NYSE: X)
- Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) will report after the close of tradin
Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU), the French telecommunications giant, is finally getting rid of its CEO Patricia Russo and Chairman Serge Tchuruk who will both resign later this year. It's no surprise shares are rebounding over 6% in premarket trading. ALU also reported its sixth consecutive quarter of losses. Alcatel-Lucent reported a net loss of 1.1 billion euros ($1.73 billion) for the second quarter including an euro810 million ($1.3 billion) goodwill writedown.
Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN) is rising over 4% in premarket trading after closing over 12% higher Monday. Amgen said Monday results for its denosumab osteoporosis drug met desired results and reported better-than expected earnings and sales (across the board). Citigroup upgraded AMGN from Hold to Buy, while Oppenheimer raised target price.
Sony Corp. (NYSE: SNE) said Tuesday its quarterly profit plunged to 34.98 billion yen ($326.9 million), about half that recorded a year ago, due to a strong yen, the absence of a hit movie revenue and declining results at its cell phone operations. Nevertheless, results beat estimates.
Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) said Tuesday it plans to close 61 Australian stores and shed 685 jobs by Aug. 3 as part of a restructure of its struggling Australian business.
SAP (NYSE: SAP) shares are climbing over 7% in premarket trading after the German business software reported stronger-than-forecast license sales and optimistic annual sales guidance. Deutsche Securities and Jefferies & Co. both raised SAP shares from Hold to Buy.
In Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) news, W.R. Hambrecht analyst Matthew Kather on Monday raised his price target on Apple stock to $257 a share from $238, saying he expects Apple's stock to outperform the broader tech market due to the the outlook for Macintosh PC and iPhone sales.
That's great for Apple, but how would that affect Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM)? The pressure from the 3G iPhone is worrying investors while rumors on problems RIMM has with its touchscreen phone, which the company has never even officially announced, are also putting pressure on the stock.
Deere up on Q4 earnings performance
Reid Hoffman: LinkedIn will go public (at some point)
Retailers can't wait for Black Friday, open Thursday
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-29-2008 @ 9:28AM
joe morelli said...
When Licent merged with Alcatel, I predicted that Ms. Russo will last only 2 years or at the most it will be 3 years. My opinion was based upon a cultural difference rather then the ability to run a major concern. I have been a stockholder for many years, and my holdings are very much below what I had invested. I hope this change will bring about some positive results.