Morning Update

"Think not of yourself as the architect of your career but as the sculptor. Expect to have to do a lot of hammering and chiselling, scraping and polishing." - B.C. Forbes

Morning News of Note:

• BAC KRB: Bank of America Makes Deal For Credit-Card Issuer MBNA Top Visa and MasterCard Shop Would Result From Pact Valued at $35 Billion Beating Out Wachovia Again Bank of America Corp., by reaching a deal to buy America's third-biggest issuer of general-purpose credit cards, moved to cement its position as a global powerhouse in striking distance of Citigroup Inc. as the biggest U.S. bank. The roughly $35 billion deal for MBNA Corp., announced yesterday morning, is the latest step in a two-decade-long transformation of Bank of America, which only last year acquired FleetBoston Financial Corp. in an even bigger deal. (Full Story) WSJ
• MSFT: Why Microsoft May Wade Into 'Adware' A year ago, the makers of "adware" programs were pariahs, blamed for fouling the Internet with unwanted come-ons and hijacking Web browsers to unwanted destinations. Since then, adware makers have been trying to clean up their act and adopt more benign uses for their technology. Now, those efforts are getting a big endorsement as Microsoft Corp. pursues talks to acquire closely held Claria Corp., one of the best-known adware makers, say people familiar with the matter. (Full Story) WSJ
• PIXR: Pixar Cuts Profit Outlook On Soft 'Incredibles' Sales Pixar Animation Studios said it will miss its second-quarter earnings forecast because of higher-than-expected returns by retailers of the home video of "The Incredibles." Pixar, Emeryville, Calif., said it expected to report earnings of 10 cents a share for the quarter ending July 2 instead of its earlier projection of 15 cents a share, which equates to $6 million less in net income than Pixar had forecast. The lower earnings reflect an increase by Pixar in the reserves it takes to cover returns of home videos from retailers. (Full Story) WSJ
• FON MOT: Sprint, Motorola To Start Testing Broadband Service Sprint Corp. and Motorola Inc. said they will jointly begin trials of wireless broadband service, using a precursor to the technology known as WiMAX. The technology enables wireless connections to the Internet at speeds comparable to high-speed wired connections, even faster than cable-modem or digital-subscriber lines. AT&T Corp. and BellSouth Corp. also recently announced plans to test wireless broadband technology in Georgia. (Full Story) WSJ
• TWX: Time Warner-TWX's AOL launches new video service-CNet.com: Yesterday, AOL, a unit of TWX, launched a video-on-demand service, AOL Video, that will allow Internet users to view music videos, news segments and other content from parent company TWX, totaling over 15,000 video assets. TWX's plentiful archives give AOL an advantage over rivals GOOG and YHOO. The service is currently in beta test mode, and will be announced on Tuesday, but can be previewed by clicking on the video search tab on AOL.com's new beta home page.

Market Comments: The market is getting a nice bounce in the early going. I am not sure what to attribute it to, other than maybe new money that has come in to fund managers and is being put to work. But I would expect volume to drop-off and the market to really slow down later in the day as traders head out ahead of the long weekend.

The ISM report came in better-than-expected this morning at 53.8 vs. 51.5 consensus. That's a nice uptick for the manufacturing sector. The 10-year is still below 4.0% and oil has fallen back around $57.