MARKET PREVIEW: To rally, or not to rally?
Investors will continue to debate Monday whether last week's disappointing employment report merits a rally. Lucent Technologies, 3Com and Portal Software should be active, and the Dow is set to open slightly lower.
U.S.
Investors shrugged off a weaker-than-expected April employment report Friday, sending the Dow Jones industrial average up 155 points to 10,951.30. The Nasdaq composite gained 45 points to close at 2,191.58.
Initially, investors had sold shares on the news, but a midday turnaround signaled that investors had decided the report would keep the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates aggressively, sparking a rally.
Expect the battle between interest-rate optimism and economic pessimism to continue Monday, as investors await other clues to the economic puzzle and look ahead to Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO) earnings, due Tuesday.
Stocks to Watch
Citing people familiar with the matter, the paper said the layoffs are expected as early as Monday. The cuts would be a second round, following 1,200 layoffs in February, and are expected to help 3Com meet its goal of reducing annual operating costs by $1 billion. The number of jobs to be eliminated was not known, but 3Com Chief Executive Bruce Claflin said in an e-mail that the cuts would be "substantial,'' the paper said.
At the Bell
The Dow Jones industrial average may open 19 points lower. The Standard & Poor's 500 index for June futures contracts was off 2.2 points to 1271 at 7:15 a.m. EDT in 24-hour electronic trading.
Reuters contributed to this report.