Radio World reported that Harris Corp. (NYSE: HRS) might sell itself. I just spoke with an analyst who said that there's a rumor that the suitor might be military contractor General Dynamics (NYSE: GD).

Harris is based in Melbourne, Fla., and has a market capitalization of $7.3 billion. Perhaps Harris thinks its growth potential in the defense industry is "less attractive" than anytime since Sept. 11, 2001. Harris has 16,000 employees and reported $5.1 billion in revenues and net income of $410 million over the last 12 months, ending March 28, 2008.

General Dynamics may be able to cut costs and increase revenues by combining the two firms. And Harris stock is clearly rising -- it's up 2.8%. Could it be due to this rumor? Please comment if you know more.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in the securities mentioned.

Oil prices are down a bit after trading up close to $127 a barrel yesterday on fears that production cuts could be coming out of oil rich Iran.

While the chatter out of Iran could be just that, idle chatter, there was still enough of a reason to spook investors into pushing crude oil up significantly Tuesday, leading to a closing price last night of a pretty remarkable $125.80. Prices hit a high Tuesday of $126.98.

One of the main factors that has led to the current record high prices is the weak U.S. dollar. Yesterday, the dollar actually rose a bit, but traders looked past that data and instead decided that any sort of production cut rumors coming out of Iran warranted more attention.

Despite Sprint Nextel Corp.'s (NYSE: S) share price being down more than 50% in the past year, shares were up 7.5% last week -- up 46.5% in the past montyh -- on all the buzz surrounding Sprint lately. There are rumors that Deutsche Telekom (NYSE: DT) may buyout Sprint and merge it into T Mobile. Then there were rumors that Sprint may spin off Nextel (i.e., undo its troubled merger). And there's the excitment around a joint venture with Clearwire Corp. (NASDAQ: CLWR) to create a high-speed wireless internet network that covers most of the U.S.

But when Sprint reports its first-quarter results tomorrow, analysts polled by Thomson Financial expect the company to report earnings of a mere penny per share, down from the same period in 2007 when it earned 18 cents per share, and from the previous quarter's 21 cents per share. The company has beat quarterly estimates over the past year -- by 17.3% in the fourth quarter -- and it certainly has plenty of room to best analysts' low expectations for this past quarter.

Overland Park, Kansas-based Sprint Nextel operates a nationwide digital wireless network with more than 50 million subscribers. In the past year, Sprint's revenues were $40.1 billion. The company's long-term EPS growth forecast is 8.22%, which is less than the 8.67% of rival Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and the S&P 500. The consensus recommendation of analysts continues to be to hold Sprint.

Shares closed Friday at $9.39, up from a 52-week low of $5.48 in March, but still well off the 52-week high of 23.42 last June.

For news that could influence these results, see BloggingStocks' Sprint coverage.

Shares of Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) are rising on a Wall Street Journal (subscription required) report that Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE: DT) is poised to make a bid for the wireless telecommunication company. If the report is accurate, Sprint's long suffering shareholders should do as the Steve Miller Band song suggests "take the money and run" because the deal may not happen.

For Sprint, though, this may be its only hope. Sprint shares have slumped almost 40% this year as the Overland Park Kansas-based company tried in vain to gain marketshare against larger rivals including Verizon and AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T). The commercials starring the company's affable CEO Daniel Hesse haven't helped much either. Remember when Hesse was named CEO last December, board member Irvine O. Hockaday Jr. remarked that Hesse "has the board's full support to take decisive actions necessary to improve our performance."

Does that mean a sale to the former German telecom monopoly? The deal makes sense in theory because combining Sprint and Deutsche Telekom would create the top wireless company with more than 82 million customers. Verizon, which is a joint venture between Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) and Vodafone Group Plc. (NYSE: VOD) has 67.2 million customers while AT&T has about 71 million wireless subscribers.

But as Bloomberg News points out, analysts argue that integrating the Deutsche Telekom and Sprint Nextel networks wouldn't be easy. Moreover, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security may not look kindly on a foreign company taking over a U.S. telecom provider for national security reasons, the news service notes.

Even so, the arguments for the merger are so compelling that it might be worth the risk.

FT.com reports that spreading a false rumor and selling short ahead of that rumor can get you into trouble. Paul Berliner is one such short-seller charged with spreading false stories about the Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX)'s acquisition of Alliance Data Systems (NYSE: ADS) while selling ADS shares short. If the SEC is serious, this could lead to other indictments since this practice appears rampant.

In this case, the SEC had evidence. On November 29 Berliner sent instant messages to traders at brokerage firms and hedge funds suggesting that Blackstone's deal to acquire ADS for $81.75 was being renegotiated at $70 a share. The rumor was picked up by the media and caused ADS's shares to fall 17%. Berliner agreed to settle the charges to disgorge $26,129 in profits, pay a $130,000 fine, and is banned from working for any broker or dealer.

As I posted last month, I received reports that hedge funds went a step further than Berliner. In that case, hedge funds may have caused the collapse of The Bear Stearns Companies (NYSE: BSC) and profited from its fall. A hedge fund manager in that post said: "Bear's collapse didn't surprise me. We've been short Bear for five days. All the hedge funds have been pulling their prime brokerage business from Bear."

If that hedge fund manager was telling the truth, does that make what he did legal?

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in the securities mentioned.

Broadcasting and Cable reports that Katie Couric, the anchor of CBS Corp.'s (NYSE: CBS) Evening News, may leave well before her $15 million a year contract expires in 2011. It suggests Couric could leave as early as next year, following the presidential inauguration in January.

Why would she leave? It looks like low ratings are forcing her out. Despite the media blitz surrounding her 2006 move from NBC's Today show, Couric did little to help the ratings, as CBS Evening News has struggled to find ratings ground behind NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams and ABC World News with Charles Gibson.

While I rarely watch her show, the few times I have she seems to be drained of life -- it is as if she is being forced to play a role that she finds excruciatingly difficult to perform. I think there is a place for her on TV but that is not it. I will be interested to see who comes in after her.

Update: The Wall Street Journal [subscription required] reports that Couric might replace Larry King when his contract expires in 2009. It notes: "One possible new job for the Ms. Couric: succeeding Larry King at Time Warner Inc.'s (NYSE: TWX) CNN [which shares a parent with BloggingStocks]. Mr. King, who is 74 years old, has a contract with the network into 2009. CNN President Jon Klein, a CBS veteran with close ties to some at the network, has expressed admiration for Ms. Couric's work, and the two are friends."

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in the securities mentioned.

With reports that Citigroup (NYSE:C) is close to selling off some $12 billion of leveraged loans and debt, the banking giant is taking a painful but very important step in cleaning up its financial situation. According to Reuters, "The sale would be to private equity firms including Apollo Management, Blackstone (NYSE: BX) and TPG, at an average price slightly below 90 cents on the dollar."

This is important for Citi for two reasons. First, they will end up with about $10 billion in cash to help them get through these tough times. Secondly, the price that they are getting for these bonds is shocking. Who would have dreamed that they could get a little less than 90 cents on the dollar.

Another interesting point is that the private equity group TPG is involved. As my colleague Zack Miller posted yesterday about its investment in Washington Mutual (NYSE:WM), TPG must believe that the banks have bottomed out. Why else would they be ponying up tens of billions of dollars?

It seems to me that we are at or very near the bottom for bank stocks. Long-term investors looking for a turnaround play may want to take a look and do some analysis of the banking sector.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer's fund has no position in any stock mentioned, as of 4/9/08.

Allegheny Technologies Inc. (NYSE: ATI) shares are trading higher today as investors pounce on speculation that ATI may be a takeover target. One possible company mentioned as a suitor for ATI is US Steel (NYSE: X). If you think that the stock won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on ATI.

After hitting a one-year high of $119.7 last April, the stock hit a one-year low of $59.00 in January. ATI opened this morning at $79.00. So far today the stock has hit a low of $79.00 and a high of $84.22. As of 1:15, ATI is trading at $83.39, up $3.39 (4.3%). The chart for ATI looks bullish and steady, while S&P gives the stock a neutral 3 Stars (out of 5) Hold rating.

News that Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM) is close to receiving a $5 billion cash infusion from a U.S. consortium bucks the trend that we have seen of late where U.S. banks take money from foreign sovereign wealth funds. I think that this is a very important step.

First, it shows that American private equity groups believe that U.S. banks are starting to get cheap and they are willing to pull the trigger on some big deals. This should help drive the market forward, as it will be a sign to many that the worst is over.

Additionally, it keeps the financial system in U.S. hands. I posted a while back about the potential security threats posed to the U.S. by foreigners taking control of our financial system. One of the big tools in the war on terror has been using the banks to track all kinds of money transfers. With foreigners taking over sizable chunks of the banking system, this tool will be much harder for the security agencies to use.

Thirty years ago, when Washington Mutual was just a small local bank operating in the state of Washington, its slogan was "a friend of the family." It looks as if it is going back to its roots.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer's fund has no position in any stock mentioned, as of 4/7/08

In a move that will bloody a number of its customers, UBS (NYSE: UBS) will mark down the value of auction-rate securities held by its customers. According to The Wall Street Journal, the bank "began on Friday to lower the values of so-called auction-rate securities held by its clients, a move that will be a jolt to customers who had been told they were investing in a 'cash alternative.'"

The action could drop the value of some of the paper by as much as 20%. Other banks are likely to follow UBS's example.

Auction-rate securities are held by individual investors, institutions and some corporations, who list them on their balance sheets as cash equivalents. At the end of the first quarter, the public companies in this pool may have to take large write-offs for their holdings, which will hit P&Ls.

There is a strong case to be made that the banks and brokerages that marketed auction-rate paper did so by saying that they were nearly as safe as cash. The auction-rate market traded well from 1985 until late last year. At that point troubled financial companies were not willing to keep the market liquid by buying excess securities from one auction and selling them in the next. This role as "specialists" kept the market operating smoothly.

There will almost certainly be a rash of lawsuits now from institutions and corporations. They will argue that the financial companies who "made the market" in auction-rate paper had an obligation to keep it trading if the securities were offered to investors as being as liquid as Treasuries.

If the auction-rate market continues to deteriorate, the lawsuits can go on as investors lose more with each passing quarter.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Jeff Manning, staff writer for The Oregonian newspaper, released a story Thursday, March 27, 2008, that claims the paper has come into possession of a copy of an internal memo from JP Morgan Chase (NYSE: JPM). According to The Oregonian article, which hints at unsavory or even fraudulent mortgage processing practices, the memo indicates that loan processors can (not should) use creative data entry to alter automated underwriting system results. The Oregonian writer entertains the "dark side" scenario in the tone of his article.That's a real convenient, time-tested ploy for selling newspapers. Kudos for his attempt.

However, representatives for Chase mortgage operations have dismissed the memo as nothing more than a strategic angle on automated process. While no one has actually come out to say they created the memo or why, the company allegedly admits that the document is genuine. I get no sense that anyone from the company who commented on the situation has anything to hide. In fact, company reps appear to be quite forthcoming on the matter.

Every day another story about our recession and the related fallout pops up. Are we in a recession or not? Or will we just teeter on the edge? The debate continues between those anal retentive types that must see all the actual facts, and those that see the signs all around and proclaim that "if it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, then by golly..."

The Federal Reserve Board has acted as if we are in a recession. They sit on one side of the teeter totter lowering interest rates to counter balance the weak economy and moderate the impact of potential negative growth. Clearly they are throwing ballast off a sinking ship.

There has been much debate recently about the Fed's dramatic bailout of The Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. (NYSE: BSC) with the cooperation and maybe hand rubbing of JP Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM). Some feel Bear Stearns should have been allowed to collapse and others feel that the Fed had no choice in the matter and was not protecting BSC, but the overall confidence in world financial markets.

In 2007, over 75 millions Americans purchased a mobile phone from a carrier-owned store, while roughly 5.5 million bought their handsets from a consumer electronics or other retail chain. That's quite an imbalance. But as networks open up and many handsets are sold in an "unlocked" state, does it make sense for carriers like AT&T, Inc. (NYSE: T) and Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) to continue to operate their own retail stores?

After all, if the exclusivity of certain handsets is no longer the domain of a certain wireless carrier, why operate an expensive chain of national retail stores that compete with the fast-and-furious retailers like Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY) and Radio Shack Corp. (NYSE: RSH)? Although AT&T and Verizon Wireless won most of the licenses at a recently-completed FCC auction, one possibility that emerged from the auctions itself was the promise of being able to use non-carrier cellphones on any network which is technically compatible. For example, one could buy a Sprint Nextel phone and use it on Verizon's network.

Does this kind of move erase any incentive for carriers to continue operating expensive retail stores across the U.S.? That is the question retailers like Best Buy would like answered, as the largest consumer electronics chain in the U.S. would like to up its mobile phone sales market share from 2% now into the double digits within five years. Financially, it may make more sense for the large wireless carriers to eventually exit the retail business and let the mega retailer -- which has better overall selling efficiency anyway -- handle phone sales. It's already ramping up Best Buy Mobile, so the strategy may be underway anyway.

On Thursday, I expressed skepticism about Borders Group Inc.'s (NYSE: BGP) efforts to sell itself in the face of deteriorating fundamentals and a problematic balance sheet.

The New York Times reports on Wall Street speculation over the past year that Borders might sell itself to its larger rival, Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS). "A combination of the biggest and second-biggest booksellers has long been believed to be an invitation for regulatory scrutiny."

On a conference call, Barnes & Noble COO Mitchell S. Klipper said that, if approached by Borders, he would "certainly take a good look at the company and put it under review." The company's chairman, Leonard Riggio, told the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), "I think it would be the height of irresponsibility for us not to look at something presented to us. If they want us to take a look, we would be pleased to do so. We also feel we would be obliged to do so."

Well of course they would. Why wouldn't they take a good look at the company? But ultimately, I think that the better-run Barnes & Noble will take one look at Borders and decide it doesn't want anything to do with it. The brick-and-mortar book industry is in serious trouble -- there's no real antidote to competition from lower-cost providers like Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) and even Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT). Borders is looking to set up its own e-commerce site, but I can't even imagine what competitive advantage it will have going up against an established rival like Amazon.

Barnes & Noble is faring reasonably well and, given the long-term problems facing the industry, I just can't see any reason for the company to double down on brick-and-mortar book selling, taking on debt to acquire an ailing brand that would need more money to be pumped into it.

Most mergers and acquisitions don't create value, and I doubt that this one would be any exception. Given the strong track record of Barnes & Noble's management, I don't think they'll make that mistake.

This post is one of several on business heirs apparent. Let us know in the comments whether you think Jeffrey Jordan live up to the legacy of his father, and be sure to check out the other heir apparent posts.

By Mike Brewster, guest blogger.

Since legendary hoopster Michael Jordan retired for good in 2003, none of the "next Michael Jordans"-- from Tracy McGrady to Jerry Stackhouse to Vince Carter -- have come close to matching Jordan's gaudy stats, six NBA titles with the Chicago Bulls, or impact on the game (not to mention his poker losses, but that's another story). Perhaps we have to look closer to home to find the real heir to Air Jordan?

Son Jeff Jordan is a freshman at the University of Illinois, and the first thing that strikes you about the younger Jordan is that he earned an academic scholarship to Illinois, certainly impressive but not exactly predictive of a Hall of Fame NBA career. Jeff's stats -- he's averaging five minutes and under one point per game this season for one of the worst Illinois squads in memory -- suggest that he might have been better off playing at one of the schools where he was offered a basketball scholarship, such as Loyola University of Chicago or Valparaiso.