Today was an unusually active day for extremely volume increases in several stocks which traded on news and rumors.

Shares in Sequenom (NASDAQ: SQNM) jumped over 10% on takevover rumors.

Rite Aide (NYSE: RAD) moved higher by 5% on larger than normal volume as it beat earnings estimates and Monsanto (NYSE: MON) traded up on strong numbers and took a number of agriculture stocks with it. Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) also benefited from earnings above Wall Street forecasts.

Palm (NASDAQ: PALM) traded higher as RBC upped its price target to $18 from $14, and MEMC (NYSE: WFR) fell on a downgrade from JPMorgan.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at VSInvestor.com.

The market spent the day as it has many a Friday in the summer: slowing going no where.

The University of Michigan/Reuters consumer sentiment index showed a very modest increase in June up to 69, from 68.7 in May. The same survey showed that expectations for six months from now actually dropped.

Oil and gas prices still dominated the headlines. Oil still hovers around $72 and the average price of gas rose for the 45th consecutive day to $2.63. The has to rattle consumers who have precious little discretionary income as it is.

Dow Chemical (DOW) is raising $1.63 billion by selling common stock. But it really needs more money than that. Perhaps in the current credit market the interest rate it would have had to pay on debt was simply too much.

Reportedly, $1 billion will be used to reduce debt it is taking on to buy rival Rohm and Hass. But the total purchase price of the transaction is $16.5 billion. Dow tried to get out of the deal. The margins in the chemical industry were ruined by the recession, but the document it signed with Rohm & Hass was airtight. Dow will almost certainly end up overpaying and will be burdened with a mammoth debt load in the process.

Research-In-Motion's (NASDAQ: RIMM) earnings are going to get better soon. And it is not entirely because the Blackberry is standard issue for most mobile business people. RIM's future is getting better because the economy is about to run up.

According to Barron's, "UBS analyst Jeffrey Fan upped his rating on Research In Motion to Buy from Neutral, and raised his rating on the shares to $90 from $65. His theory: the stock will be a good bet in an economic recovery." Fan sees an improvement in enterprise IT spending next year. He also believes that the Blackberry does not have much competition among business users.

Here are the unofficial closing numbers:

Dow 8,169.00 -16.73 (-0.20%)
S&P 500 872.42 -1.22 (-0.14%)
Nasdaq 1,715.10 +3.16 (0.18%)

VW may have passed Toyota (NYSE: TM) as the world's No.1 car company just as Toyota passed GM (NYSE: GM) a year ago. Unfortunately, the companies all operate in an industry where being on the top of the pile does not matter much these days. It is probable that each of these firms loses money on the great majority of the cars they sell. To make matter worse, market share may be a weakness as the auto industry moves out of the recession.

It seems more and more likely that modest sized and nimble auto makers like BMW and Hyundai, who do not have to maintain factories in distant corners of the world and do not have to develop and market dozens of individual products, may hold an advantage in a fragmented car industry. The behemoths rely on their ability to maintain massive capital spending and their cost structures can do them nearly irreparable harm in a weak economy.

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) was up yesterday, but so was almost everything else. The company is getting special attention from investors because Credit Suisse upgraded its view of the firm's prospects for the second quarter.

Apparently, demand for iPhones and Macs is better than expected.

According to the Associated Press, "In a client note, Credit Suisse analyst Bill Shope increased his target price to $133 from $120." What is not clear is whether the potential improvement in Apple's business is due to an overall upturn in PC and smartphone purchases or if the better results are restricted to Apple.

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) may end up being the stock of the year. In one brief announcement of a estimated $3 billion profit for the first quarter, it laid to rest most of the concerns about the financial industry. Hopefully, none of the other banks will screw it up next week.

The results from today:

Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) CEO Ken Lewis has based what is left of his reputation on the fact that the firm does not need another dime in government money. As a matter of fact, he regrets taking as much TARP cash as he did.

According to Bloomberg, Oppenheimer & Co. believes that "Bank of America Corp., the largest U.S. bank, needs to raise $36.6 billion in equity to bring capital ratios in line with its peers." In this environment, that money is not going to come from the private sector. The only entity with the stones to put it up is the U.S. government.

While the money may not come in exchange for common stock, any instrument is likely to have some conversion provisions, which means that dilution is possible. With a market cap of $44 billion, current Bank of America shareholders will be facing a large haircut if Oppenheimer is right. The stock trades at $7.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 24/7 Wall St.

Most investors consider Dell Computer (NASDAQ: DELL) a dog of a company. Since the firm's founder, Michael Dell, took over as CEO, his only real skill seems to be cutting costs. The firm has lost market share in the PC category and is behind companies like Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ) and International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) in the server business.

The fate of Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) shares seems to rise and fall on rumors that the company will release a new version of its iPhone.

Apple's shares are up 35% so far this year, so it needs more sightings of iPhone upgrades to keep the stock's momentum going between now and its earnings release.

According to Barron's, Barclay's has upped it price target on the stock from $113 to $143, and increased its earnings estimates. Since Apple traded near $116 last week, the analysis may come a little late. The newspaper says that the reasons for Barclay's optimism is "anticipation of new iPhones to be unveiled in June and an ultra-portable device" expected later this year.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) has walked out on its deal to buy Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) -- or could just be using hardball negotiations to have its way on the price it is willing to pay. Word is that Sun's board is divided over the value of IBM's offer.

In either case, the value of Sun's stock is likely to go back to where it traded before the IBM buy-out rumor hit the street. That would be under $5. The stock closed at $8.49 on Friday.

According to Reuters, "The collapse of the talks, if final, would come as a surprise to Wall Street, which had seen the deal as a means for Sun's survival, as well as a way for IBM to compete more effectively against rivals like Hewlett-Packard." It would also leave Sun, one of the worst-managed tech companies in America, to fend for itself in a recession that has cut sharply into IT spending.

Sun has survived the last three years through cost cutting. In a good quarter over that period it has lost a modest amount of money. Since there are several larger companies competing with it for market share in the global server business, Sun's losses could grow considerably if another suitor does not come along. That is not likely. The only other company which could use Sun as a way to buy market share is Dell (NASDAQ: DELL), and it has not had any appetite for large acquisitions.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 24/7 Wall St.

In any normal universe, the market would have collapsed on news that unemployment went to 8.5%. To make matters worse, it is obviously going much higher.

The market shrugged all of that off and went nowhere. Most financial stocks were up. A number of tech and telecom stocks were down. Whatever bump the G-20 gave the market seems to have dissipated in a day.

The numbers:

DJIA:Dow 8,017.59 +39.51 (0.50%)
S&P 500 842.47 +8.09 (0.97%)
Nasdaq 1,621.87 +19.24 (1.20%)

Analyst upgrades
Analyst downgrades

IBM (NYSE: IBM) cut its offer for Sun (NASDAQ: JAVA) from about $11 a share to just above $9. As a concession, IBM said that it would do everything it could to get regulatory approval. The situation may not be that simple. IBM may want to wait for Sun's earnings and, if they are weak, drop the price of the offer again.

The way that the deal is likely to play out is a fine example of what happens when a very strong company is in the process of taking over a very weak one.

The pressure that the Administration is putting on the UAW and the creditors at GM (NYSE: GM) and Chrysler may be good for the two troubled car companies, but the help for the two weak companies could hurt the strongest one -- Ford (NYSE: F).

Any cost advantages that come out of deals forced on labor because of the threat of Chapter 11 will cut costs at GM, and might bring those costs well below what Ford has been able to get in concessions on its own. GM could end up with a substantial gross margin lead over the No. 2 U.S. car maker.