Expect the following technology stocks to be among Monday's most actively traded issues: AboveNet, AT&T, Hewlett-Packard and PeopleSoft.
AboveNet said Monday it agreed to acquire the assets and liabilities of the Palo Alto Internet Exchange (PAIX) from Compaq Computer for about $75 million, consisting of $70 million in cash plus an agreement to provide ongoing services to Compaq.
AT&T was mentioned in Barron's as a favorite of Carl Lawrence, the head of Warwick Capital Management. Lawrence sees Ma Bell sitting in the driver's seat as demand for high-speed Internet services, digital TV and telecommunications services grows in the coming years.
Whereas Dell Computer Corp. (Nasdaq: DELL), Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT), Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) and America Online Inc. (NYSE: AOL) were panned for being overvalued. Also, Lawrence advised avoiding "anything with a ".com" in its name." Who said there weren't level heads to be found on Wall Street?
AT&T rose 3/16 to 59 7/16 on Friday.
If an IPO falls flat what does the encore look like.
That's what Fashionmall.com (Nasdaq: FASH) has to be asking itself after pricing at $13 and not budging in very un-dot-com like trading Friday.
In fact two other tech IPOs are in the same boat.
@Plan Inc. (Nasdaq: APLN) closed up 2 to 16 after pricing the 2.5 million-share offering at $14 a share last night. It did move as high as 18 1/2. TenFold Corp. (Nasdaq: TENF) closed up 5 7/8 to 22 7/8 Friday after pricing its first public offering at $17 a share.
Coming off its stellar second-quarter earnings, Hewlett-Packard said Friday it would increase its share repurchase program by $2 billion.
H-P also approved an additional $2 billion for the buyback of its common stock and said about $600 million is left over from an earlier authorization.
H-P shares closed off 1/8 to 93 7/8 Friday.
The developer of business management software is expected to name entrepreneur Craig Conway as its new CEO sometime this week.
PeopleSoft, which has watched its stock price fall from 52 1/8 in July to as low as 11 1/8 earlier this year, has lost a lot of business as companies deal with their Y2K issues.
In April, PeopleSoft met reduced estimates in its first quarter.
Conway recently stepped down from a similar position at One Touch, a San Jose, Calif. start-up.
PeopleSoft shares closed unchanged at 16 3/16 Friday.
-Eric C. Fleming contributed to this report.
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