Morning Look

Morning News of Note:

• TWX: Icahn Issues Time Warner Challenge Financier Confirms Alliance With Other Investors to Seek Changes at Media Company New York financier Carl Icahn plans to meet with Time Warner Inc. Chairman Richard Parsons tomorrow to discuss Mr. Icahn's push for the media titan to spin off its cable unit and undertake a $20 billion stock buyback. After a week of speculation about his intentions, Mr. Icahn issued a statement confirming he has allied with three other investors to agitate for changes at the media company. He said in the statement that Time Warner's management "has not moved quickly enough" to enhance shareholder value. (Full Story) WSJ
• TGT WMT: Hungry Target adds food to stores Target Corp. just planted a bigger bull's-eye on the backs of the nation's grocery stores. The Minneapolis-based discount chain said last week it will more than double its food offerings in its new and remodeled general merchandise stores. For the year ending Jan. 29, Target had 1,308 stores. Of those, 136 were Super Target stores, which already include a full-scale supermarket, and 1,172 were Target general merchandise stores. (Full Story) Chicago Tribune
• AAPL: Two products of Apple Computer are showing signs this month that they may soon be labeled "end-of-life" with no future availability. Over the weekend resellers reported that Apple had canceled individual backorders for its single-buttoned wired optical Apple Mouse, which currently ships standard with Macintosh desktop systems and was also available for purchase separately. The $29 mouse also recently disappeared from Apple's online stores, making the new $49 Mighty Mouse the cheapest Apple mouse available for direct order. (Full Story) Apple Insider
• TGT: Target expects Aug comps to be in line with planned 4-6% increase range (57.15 +0.57)

Market Comments: The market is opening slightly lower on weak WMT results, and the statement that they will no longer release weekly sales forecasts. Bummer. I really liked these weekly looks into consumer spending.

CPI came in at +0.5% (vs. +0.4% consensus); core CPI came in at +0.1% vs. +0.2% cons.

long TWX, WMT