
Preopen Trading: Post-Halloween Blues Flatten Prospects for Open
One week after
AT&T
(T) - Get Report
said it is splitting itself into
four separate businesses,
WorldCom
(WCOM)
this morning said it is
creating a tracking stock for its consumer business. The consumer business will bring back the name used by the consumer group before it merged with WorldCom,
MCI
(MCI) - Get Report
, and will include consumer long-distance service. The company will distribute 100% of this MCI stake to shareholders.
Shareholders of WorldCom will get 1 share of MCI stock for every 25 shares of WorldCom. The stock recently was the most actively traded stock on electronic trading brokerage
Instinet
and lately dropped $2.75, or 11.6%, to $21.
Rambus
(RMBS) - Get Report
was bouncing up $2.56 to $47.50, after sliding 15.9% in yesterday's action after online trade magazine
Electronic Buyers' News
reported that
Intel
(INTC) - Get Report
would phase out its use of Rambus technology.
After yesterday's triple-digit gains in the
Dow and
Nasdaq, some of that optimism seemed to have scattered and futures were indicating a flat to negative opening. The
S&P 500 futures on
Globex
lately were down 6.50 to 1433.7, or about 5.5 points below fair value as calculated by
Prudential Securities
.
Nasdaq 100
futures were 22 lower to 3278, or about 31 points below fair value as calculated by
TheStreet.com
.
Europe's major indices were mixed at midsession, with France's
CAC-40
off 0.1%, Germany's
Xetra Dax
down 0.2% and the U.K.'s
FTSE 100
up 0.4%. Asian markets rallied. Japan's
Nikkei 225
jumped 2.3% overnight, while Hong Kong's
Hang Seng
rose 3.1% (see today's
Asian Markets Update for more).
Elsewhere in preopen trading, on
Island
Xilinx
(XLNX) - Get Report
was up down $4 to $68.44.
For Tuesday's postclose trading, see The Night Watch.
Senior editor Ellen Braitman chats with Christopher Edmonds, columnist for RealMoney.com, exclusively on TheStreet.com at 3 p.m. EST Wednesday, Nov. 1. Join them with your market and investment questions by logging on the home page.