Leading Wall St shares were mixed in early deals ahead of a slew of earnings and economic reports due later this week. By mid-morning, the Dow Jones was up 2.74 points to 10,487.92 while the Nasdaq was down 6.56 points to 2,105.22. Stocks put in a lacklustre performance today after yesterday's tech-led rally on the main indices with investors cautious ahead of earnings reports from Intel, Apple and Yahoo!
In today's corporate news, biotechnology firm Abbott Laboratories gained 2.2pc after it said it would buy fellow biotech firm ThereSense, a maker of diabetes tests, for USD1.2bn. Mobile phone maker Motorola rose by 3pc after it said it had won USD1bn in sales of mobile phones and components to China. Computer systems firm Lucent Technologies also received promises of substantial sales to the country and saw its stock rise 9pc in early trading. Still among the high-techs, Lehman Brothers upgraded the mobile communications sector saying that mergers and consolidation activity was likely in the near future. Nextel and AT&T both gained around 3pc on the news//www.fxcentre.com/