Motorola Hires An Outsider

Motorola surprised investors Tuesday by hiring an outsider.

Ed Zander, former president of Sun Microsystems , got the nod over Motorola COO Mike Zafirovski, who was the inside favorite for the job.

It was a bold move for Motorola. Not only did the company not pick an insider, but Zander will also be the first CEO in Motorola’s 75-year history not named Galvin.

Investors cheered the news, sending Motorola’s stock 4% higher on hopes that Zander can turn around the company’s sagging fortunes.

Stocks rose Tuesday on Oracle’s better than expected results and positive inflation and industrial production reports. Positive guidance from GE outweighed a warning from Honeywell .

The Nasdaq rose 6 to 1924, the S&P 500 gained 7 to 1075, and the Dow surged 106 to 10,129. Volume rose to 1.51 billion shares on the NYSE, but slipped to 1.82 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led 19-13 on the NYSE, while decliners led 16-15 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 62% on the NYSE, and 53% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 196-7 on the NYSE, and 86-15 on the Nasdaq.

Extreme Networks plunged 22% on a warning, dragging networking stocks like Cisco and Juniper lower.

SanDisk fell 9% on concern about a glut in the flash memory market.

Amazon lost 2% on a Lehman Brothers downgrade.

EMC lost 2% on an acquisition, while Check Point rose 2% on the acquisition of Zone Labs.

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