Stocks to Watch: Arbitron, Apple, Oracle (Update 1)

NEW YORK -- Nielsen Holdings reached a deal to buy Arbitron (ARB) for $48 a share, or $1.26 billion.

The offering price is a 26% premium to Arbitron's closing price on Monday.

Arbitron shares were rising 25% to $47.55 in premarket trading Tuesday.

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General Electric (GE) reportedly is close to reaching a deal to buy Italian aerospace supplier Avio for about $4 billion.

The deal between GE and Avio's owner, British private-equity firm Cinven, is expected to come together this week, according to reports from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, which cited people with knowledge of the discussions.

Avio makes components for commercial and military jet engines as well as propulsion systems for satellite launch vehicles.

GE said Monday it expects revenue to be flat to up 5% in 2013, though CEO Jeff Immelt said worries over the so-called fiscal cliff hurt demand in the last months of 2012, Reuters reported. GE also said it expects profits to rise in 2013 but didn't specify by how much.

GE shares were falling 0.8% in premarket trading to $24.75.

GE Still Bringing Good Things to Life

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Apple (AAPL) was denied a request from a U.S. judge for a permanent injunction against Samsung's smartphones, Reuters reported early Tuesday.

"The phones at issue in this case contain a broad range of features, only a small fraction of which are covered by Apple's patents," wrote U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh.

"Though Apple does have some interest in retaining certain features as exclusive to Apple," Koh continued, "it does not follow that entire products must be forever banned from the market because they incorporate, among their myriad features, a few narrow protected functions."

Apple shares were rising 1.1% to $524.75.

Microsoft's Retail Strategy Absolutely Stinks

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Knight Capital Group's (KCG) board was split between two competing buyout offers from suitors Getco and Virtu Financial, sources involved in the talks told Reuters.

By late Monday, Knight hadn't reached a decision on which offer to accept. But a deal of some kind for the market-maker increasingly was looking more likely than not, the source said.

4 More Stocks Jumping on Unusual Volume

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Oracle (ORCL), the software giant, is expected by analysts Tuesday to post fiscal second-quarter earnings of 61 cents a share on revenue of $9.03 billion.

The stock was higher by 0.8% to $32.60.

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Boeing (BA)lifted its quarterly dividend by 10% to 48.5 cents a share and said it plans to buy back $1.5 billion to $2 billion of its shares next year.

Boeing shares gained 0.2% in premarket trading Tuesday.

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American International Group (AIG) raised $6.45 billion from the sale of its remaining stake in Asian insurer AIA Group.

The stock rose 1% to $35.30.

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Jefferies (JEF) is expected by analysts to report fourth-quarter earnings Tuesday of 32 cents a share on revenue of $722.6 million.

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-- Written by Joseph Woelfel



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