Dow Nears 12,000

Wachovia (WB Quote) made $1.88 billion, or $1.17 a share, for the latest quarter, up from last year's $1.66 billion, or $1.06 a share. Excluding merger costs, earnings were $1.19 a share, in line with the Thomson Financial estimate. Wachovia fell 2.2% to $55.25.

Specialist firm LaBranche (LAB Quote) reported third-quarter earnings of $7.8 million, or 13 cents a share, down from $9.2 million, or 15 cents a share, a year ago. Revenue rose 50% to $125.4 million. Analysts were looking for earnings of 11 cents a share. The stock dropped nearly 18% to $9.07.

Away from earnings, Oshkosh (OSK Quote) said it would acquire building-equipment maker JLG (JLG Quote) for around $3 billion, and UnitedHealth (UNH Quote) said William McGuire is stepping down as chairman and chief executive. McGuire left Sunday as chairman, and he will resign from the CEO post by Dec. 1.

On the research front, Goldman Sachs upgraded Lowes (LOW Quote), and ThinkEquity cut its rating and price target on Amazon.com (AMZN Quote).

Prudential initiated coverage of Dell (DELL Quote) with an overweight rating, and Home Depot (HD Quote) was downgraded at Goldman to neutral from buy.

Crude prices rose $1.37 to $59.94 a barrel following word that OPEC would gather this week to talk about production quotas. Other energy futures were higher.

Treasuries were little changed or slightly higher. The benchmark 10-year note was adding 4/32 in price to yield 4.78%, and the dollar was mixed against other major currencies.

Stocks advanced overseas. London's FTSE 100 was up 0.3% at 6172, and Frankfurt's Xetra DAX added 0.2% to 6187. Tokyo's Nikkei rose 0.9% to 16,693, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng climbed 0.1% to 18,010.