U.S. futures gain; Cisco, RIM and ChoicePoint poised to rise - MarketWatch
The dollar traded broadly flat against the euro and Japan's yen, while crude oil hovered close to $100 a barrel, with the April light-crude contract down 8 cents at $99.62.
Cisco (CSCO:
CSCO
) was upgraded to buy from hold at Citigroup, sending its Frankfurt-traded shares up 2.6%. Also likely to draw scrutiny, handheld device supplier Research In Motion (RIMM:
RIMM
) said it expects net subscriber account additions in the fourth quarter to be 15% to 20% higher than the 1.82 million additions it had previously forecast. An expected seasonal slowdown in sales didn't materialize, the company said. The bond-insurance sector will be back in focus as well. MBIA (MBI:
MBI
) spurned a plan put forth by hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman to split up struggling insurers, saying it's mainly designed to boost Ackman's negative bets against itself and rival Ambac Financial Group (ABK:ABK
) . See full story. In deal news, ChoicePoint Inc. (CPS:
CPS
) has agreed to be bought by U.K. publishing group Reed Elsevier (RUK:RUK
) for $4.1 billion, including $600 million of assumed debt. The $50-a-share deal represents a 49% premium to Wednesday's closing price for ChoicePoint. Among companies due to report financial results, supermarket operator Safeway (SWY:
SWY
) is expected to report fourth-quarter earnings of 68 cents a share and department-store chain J.C. Penney (JCP:JCP
) is forecast to have earned $1.74 a share in the quarter. Late Wednesday, Analog Devices (ADI:
Asian markets rose overnight, helped by Wall Street's gains in the previous session. European stocks were also trading higher, with the U.K.'s FTSE 100 index adding 1.7% in mid-morning trading.ADI
) said first-quarter profit more than doubled to $370.7 million from $153.2 million due to gains from the sale of two businesses. 
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