Big mo for Big MO

Morning News of Note:

• TWX: Time Warner Seeks to Sell Braves For the second time in three years, Time Warner Inc. is looking for a buyer for its Atlanta Braves baseball team. The media concern confirmed it had put up for sale both the team and Turner South cable channel, which carries Braves games. Sports bankers estimate the team could sell for about $400 million, the channel for about $200 million, according to cable-industry consulting firm Kagan Research LLC. (Full Story) WSJ
• GOOG: Google-GOOG new enterprise search product aimed and small & large businesses-CNET: Google (GOOG) is positioning the company to be a major part of the burgeoning enterprise search market for corporations. Workers spend on average 25% of their day looking for information. Google's new corporate search tool is aimed at drastically reducing that time spent searching and increasing productivity. Solutions range from $3000 for a small business to index its documents to over $30k for larger companies
• AMGN ABGX: Abgenix Inc. shares soared in Germany after the U.S. drugmaker accepted a $2.2 billion cash offer from Amgen Inc., the world's biggest biotechnology company. Abgenix shares rose 50 percent to 18.03 euros ($21.67) in Frankfurt after closing at $14.65 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading yesterday. Amgen offered $22.50 a share for Abgenix, 54 percent more than Freemont, California-based Abgenix's closing price yesterday. The announcement came after U.S. markets closed. (Full Story) Bloomberg
• SIRI: Will Enough People 'Give' Howard Stern To Boost Sirius Sales? When Howard Stern announced last year that he was moving from traditional broadcast radio to satellite, he promised to crush the old medium and bring hordes of fans with him to subscription-based Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. Now, just weeks before he begins his new show on Sirius, Mr. Stern must prove he can deliver on his promise and justify the $500 million Sirius is paying him over the next five years (Full Story) WSJ
• SRCL: Stericycle-SRCL downgraded to Neutral from Buy, target $61@BOFA The firm has downgraded shares on valuation

Market Comments: The market opened slightly lower this morning, most likely on profit taking from the last two days. The Illinois supreme court reversed the $10B verdict against Phillip Morris, and the news has MO trading up more than 5% to new highs.

Tech is a mixed bag, with several recent leaders pulling back. I suspect this group could be ready to run again into year-end.

Either this will be the first day in a while that early weakness persists throughout the day, or it will be another day where the bears fail to gain traction and the market rebounds into the close. Remember, this is quadruple expiration week, so there is usually at least one big down day on those weeks. Maybe that will be today. But one day won't change the fact that the market keeps pushing to new highs.

long AMGN, SRCL, TWX