Before the bell: Futures steady ahead of payroll report

Wal-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.

Main market news here.

Including gas, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) same-store sales rose 1.3% in May, and excluding gas sales, same-store sales rose 1.1%. Analysts, on average, had expected same-store sales to rise 1.4%, according to Thomson Financial.

Toyota Motor Corp (NYSE: TM) said its global sales of its hybrid vehicles have topped 1 million. The announcemnet comes a day after the heads of the Big 3 carmakers went to Washington to complain about fuel-efficiency standards. Meanwhile, we also hear today that Spain is close to imposing emissions-related taxes on cars. This would effectively raise taxes for the more contaminating models and probably lower them for the least contaminating.

Don't you just love those corporate tax accountants? Well, these guys for IBM (NYSE: IBM) should probably get a big bonus as they managed to save the company about $1.6 billion last month by using a corporate tax loophole that has since been closed, according to the Wall Street Journal.

U.S. District Judge Eldon E. Fallon accepted the jury's verdict against Merck & Co. (NYSE: MRK) in the Vioxx case claiming the drug caused a man's hear attack, but overturned the damage award, finding that while the punitive damages were reasonable, the $50 million in compensation was excessive.The man who was awarded the damages should accept the $1.6 million proposed by the judge rather than go to a second jury, his lawyer yesterday.

Yesterday it was released by market research firm iSuppli that Apple Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AAPL) Apple TV has a much lower gross margin than the company's iPod digital media players. Having said that, AAPL stock is up over 1% in pre-market trading (8:20 a.m.).

PepsiCo. (NYSE: PEP) and affiliate PepsiAmericas Inc, a beverage bottler, are buying an 80% stake in a Ukraine-based juice company Sandora LLC for $542 million (€401 million). The two companies expect to acquire the remaining 20% in November.

A federal agency could decide today whether to ban imports of mobile telephones that include semiconductors made by Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) as Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM) alleges they violate its patented technology. The ban has been postponed several times as wireless carriers (Verizon, Sprint) and handset manufacturers (Motorola, Samsung) protested and objected the ban.

Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) is leaving the LCD television business to focus on its core PC products. Dell would cease making Dell-branded LCD televisions this month, according to Chinese-language Economic Daily reported, which cited unnamed sources.

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) is holding an analyst meeting today and is expected to discuss its recent acquisition of a Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) unit and highlight its pipeline.

Mega-trendy retailer Limited Brands (NYSE: LTD) announced the sale today of its Express Stores unit to private equity firm Golden Gate Capital, and in the same breath said it was evaluating the options for its Limited Stores segment -- the brand the company derives its name from. Despite the surface inscrutability of this decision (why sell the company's titular brands, the ones that are growing in gross profit while the company's other units are slipping bigtime?), it's one that analysts have been predicting for a while given that CEO Leslie Wexner has been hyping his Victoria's Secret unit as a "megabrand" upon which Limited's future prospects would hinge. Both Victoria's Secret and soap-and-lotion retailer Bath & Body Works, he insists, depend on products whose sales are more predictable than those of clothing.

While that's certainly true, it's also true that the profit margins for the cheap, trendy clothing sold by the company's Express and Limited stores are growing while the rest of the company's brands are falling. Today the company announced that it is revising its outlook for Q1 2007 downward significantly due to poorer-than-expected sales and merchandise margins at Victoria's Secret. After slashing the outlook from 25-28 cents a share to 12-14 cents a share, the stock was down significantly, $1.23 or 4.5% to $26.18, although after-market trading shows some nice recovery.

Perhaps the prediction isn't so easy, but the fact remains that the profit margins and same-store sales growth is a lot better on lemongrass- and magnolia-scented lotion than tank tops and skinny jeans. While Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works regularly record operating profit in the 20-30% range, a good quarter for Express and Limited stores hovers between 5% and 6%. Lingerie is sexy, and soap is way, way sexier -- and Limited Brands has picked this clean, sweet-smelling horse to ride for now.

As of February 3, 2007, Limited had 658 Express stores and 260 Limited stores; 1,326 stores in the Victoria's Secret unit (which includes the La Senza brand); and 1,546 Bath & Body Works stores.

Ever wonder whether there is a central authority managing all the telephone numbers, enabling the dynamic routing of calls among thousands of competing communications service providers? There is, you know, and it's headquartered in Sterling, Virginia.

NeuStar Inc (NYSE: NSR) provides services to the North American communications industry and to Internet service providers around the world. In North America, the firm manages the database of area codes and phone numbers used by carriers to route calls. On the Web, it operates a registry of domain addresses. The company is a leading provider of clearinghouse services for such telecom carrier functions as ordering, service provisioning, billing and customer service. Clients include Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ), Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) and AT&T, Inc. (NYSE: T).

NeuStar pleased the Street last week, when it announced preliminary Q1 EPS of 21-22 cents and revenues of $96.5-$97.5 million. Analysts had been looking for 22 cents and $97.0 million. Management also affirmed FY07 EPS of $1.04-1.09 ($1.07 consensus) and revenues of $428-$438 million ($433.9M consensus).

Last night on CNBC's MAD MONEY, Jim Cramer went way too far out on the limb by calling for and predicting several mega-mergers in the wake of the XMSR/SIRI deal. Cramer is obviously controversial, as he is either loved or hated, but no matter how you cut it last night was probably the biggest 'instant merger' grouping -- the biggest, and the least believable.

He suggested that Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) should unite with Time Warner Cable (TWCA) (TWC). Even in a lax regulatory environment this would not be allowed and would be relentlessly fought by consumer advocacy groups. Cramer said that Verizon Communications' (NYSE:VZ) FiOS TV offering that is being rolled out in Time Warner's and Comcast's back yards comes cheaper at bundle prices. Yes, it's cheaper to get your Triple Play of cable, internet and phone from the phone company instead of from the cable company. But realistically this will better compete against satellite than it will cable, or at least that is my prediction and analysis.