Filed under: Before the bell, Analyst upgrades and downgrades, Deals, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO), Apple Inc (AAPL), General Electric (GE), PepsiCo (PEP), Walt Disney (DIS), MasterCard Inc’A’ (MA)
Before the bell: Futures point to higher open — BGP, NKE, C, FDX
General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) was raised to Purchase from Neutral’ at Merrill Lynch, due to its defensive positioning in the current economic climate. GE shares are up 1.7% in premarket trading following the upgrade.
Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) shares soared over 28% in their stock market debut Wednesday. Already priced above expectations at $44 per share in the biggest IPO in U.S. history that raised almost $18 billion, Visa shares closed at $56.50. Many assume that given the successful MasterCard (NYSE: MA) IPO and given Visa’s leading position, the shares are worth a shot, especially in today’s market conditions.
As Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) enhances the the security of the iPhone and adds more enterprise-friendly version of firmware by June 2008, IT advisory and consulting firm Gartner Inc, originally concerned about about some security issues, may then raise its recommendation to “appliance-level” support status for the device, permitting it to be used for PIM, e-mail, telephony and browsing applications and more.
PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP) and Pepsi Bottling Group Inc. (NYSE: PBG) announced their second Russian deal this week, as they agreed to buy 75.53% of the country’s largest juice maker, JSC Lebedyansky, for $1.4 billion and could buy the rest.
The Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) confirmed that it is in advanced speaks with The Children’s Place Retail Stores, Inc. (NASDAQ: PLCE) concerning the Disney Store retail chain where Disney might acquire ownership of a portion of the Disney Store chain in North America. PLCE shares are climbing 6.4% in premarket trading.
comScore released February search engine rankings. While there were no surprises in the ranking themselves, with Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), in the No.1 spot, as usual increasing its market share, while Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) in second and third place respectively losing some share, the number of queries data held some surprises as it declined across the board from the previous month. Citigroup’s Mark Mahaney notes that “GOOG’s U.S. query growth of 26% marked a deceleration vs. 37% growth in January and 40% growth in Q4.”
Entries (RSS)