You’ve gotta love the rumor mill.
Today’s financial entertainment is brought to you by Business Week, which reports that Disney and Comcast
, fresh off their own failed merger attempt, are both scooping up shares of InterActiveCorp
on the belief that Disney may try to acquire it.
The combined company would have a bigger market cap than Comcast and supposedly discourage the cable giant from making another takeover attempt, or so goes the thinking. Disney chief Michael Eisner and IACI boss Barry Diller are supposedly buds, and there’s also speculation that Diller might succeed Eisner as head of Disney in a year or two.
An interesting story, and certainly Disney would get some first-rate Internet properties in the deal, but Disney’s record with the Web hasn’t been all that stellar (read: Go.com), and we’re not sure what the media giant would do with travel and lending properties, among other assets. It’s hard to see the synergies, but stranger things have happened.
The market was unchanged Friday on inline manufacturing and consumer confidence reports.
The Nasdaq slipped 2 to 2029, the S&P 500 was unchanged at 1144, and the Dow added 3 to 10,583. Volume rose to 1.51 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.88 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led 21-10 on the NYSE, and 17-14 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 60% on the NYSE, and 47% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 279-2 on the NYSE, and 148-5 on the Nasdaq.
Oracle fell 3% on news that it plans to fight the Justice Department’s rejection of its bid for PeopleSoft
.
China.com slipped despite beating estimates, while Autodesk
, Marvell
and McData
surged on their reports.
VeriSign lost 3% on news that the company is suing ICANN.
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