Quote of the Day

"In the takeover business, if you want a friend, you buy a dog." - Carl Icahn

Morning News of Note:

• MOT: Motorola's Modernizer CEO Zander Shakes Up VPs, Pushes Cool Phones and Vows To Leave Rivals in the Dust In recent years, Motorola Inc. had reason to be prouder of its past than its present. The company, based in Schaumburg, Ill., built some of the first car radios, provided walkie-talkies for U.S. soldiers in World War II, enabled astronauts on the moon to talk to earth and led the development of cellphones. In 1996, when it introduced the hugely popular StarTAC cellphone, Motorola controlled more than half the global cellphone market. (Full Story) WSJ
• E-Commerce Decline: Internet Scams, Breaches Drive Buyers Off the Web, Survey Finds A deluge of online scams and breaches of financial databases are taking a toll on electronic commerce, a survey from research firm Gartner Inc. shows. In a disturbing message for online retailers and bankers, more than 42% of online shoppers and 28% of people who bank online are cutting back on their activity because of "phishing" attacks and other assaults on sensitive data, according to a May survey of 5,000 U.S. online consumers by Gartner, scheduled for release today. (Full Story) WSJ
• WFMI: Whole Foods May Get Trimmed LATELY THE STOCK OF Whole Foods Market is looking a bit like an over-baked soufflé. Shares in the growing natural and organic foods retailer are up a whopping 165% since Barron's Online wrote favorably about the company in August 2002. In the past 12 months alone, the stock has outdone the Standard & Poor's 500 Index by roughly 25 percentage points. But its lofty valuation may encourage investors to get out of the kitchen. (Full Story) BARRONS
• CEO UCL UVX: CNOOC Offers $18.5 Bln for Unocal, Tops Chevron Plan CNOOC Ltd., China's third-largest oil producer, offered to buy Unocal Corp. for $18.5 billion in cash, topping the price Chevron Corp. agreed to pay for the U.S. oil and gas company. CNOOC bid $67 cash per Unocal share, or $1.5 billion more than Chevron's cash and stock plan, the Beijing-based company said in a statement today. San Ramon, California-based Chevron's agreement is ``highly likely'' to be completed while CNOOC faces ``an extensive'' regulatory process in the U.S., Chevron said. (Full Story) Bloomberg
• RIMM: More NTP Patents Are Rejected, Says BlackBerry Maker Research In Motion Ltd. said the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected two more NTP Inc. patents, providing more ammunition for the BlackBerry maker as it wages a high-stakes legal battle with NTP. Seven of the eight NTP patents under review by the patent office have now been rejected and a ruling on the remaining patent under review is expected soon, said Research In Motion, or RIM. (Full Story) WSJ

Market Comments: The market is set for a flat open, and closed flat on the day yesterday also. More consolidation, which is healthy. When the market is in a position to pullback or selloff, and instead merely moves sideways, it is usually bullish in that it sets the market up nicely for another push higher. This is what I have been expecting to see as we approach quarter-end.

Long-term interest rates remain low, the dollar is stable, and there have been no big earnings warnings (at least, not yet). Greenspan speaks today, and will likely address things like China-US trade, etc.