Equity Movers: Altera, WorldCom, Covad
Altera, WorldCom, Applied Materials, Covad and Rambus are among the companies expected to move in the markets Wednesday.
Altera (ALTR): The maker of programmable logic chips said fourth-quarter sales will grow in the range of 12 percent to 15 percent from the third quarter, on the low end of its forecast. Shares of Altera fell $6.50, or almost 16 percent, to $34.44.
WorldCom (WCOM): The long-distance phone company assigned a tracking stock to its long-distance unit, following a similar move by AT&T. Worldcom's long-distance service, MCI, will trade on Nasdaq under the ticker "MCIT." Shares of WorldCom fell $2.75, or about 12 percent, to $19.
Applied Materials (AMAT): The chipmaker was downgraded to "outperform" from "strong buy" in a report by analyst Jay Deahna at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. Shares of Applied Materials fell $3.50, or about 6 percent, to $49.63.
Covad Communications (COVD): Chairman and chief executive Robert Knowling resigned from the company, which provides digital subscriber line (DSL) Internet services. The news comes two weeks after the company reported a wider-than-expected third-quarter loss. Shares of Covad fell 6 cents, or 1 percent, to $5.22.
Rambus (RMBS): The designer of computer memory announced a deal with Samsung whereby Rambus will license its patent for synchronous dynamic RAM (SDRAM) memory. Shares of Rambus rose $2, or about 4 percent, to $48.