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MARKET PREVIEW: Wall Street awaits rulings

2 min read
Investors will have their eyes on Presidential politics again Monday as two key decisions are expected in the race for the White House. Asian markets were mixed, European markets fell and the Dow is set to open slightly lower.

U.S.

Wall Street awaits two key court decisions, expected Monday, that could finally decide the next U.S. President. In Tallahassee, Circuit Court Judge N. Sanders Sauls will rule on whether to permit manual vote recounts in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach Counties. In Washington, D.C., the U.S. Supreme Court could rule on the Bush campaign's effort to overturn a Florida Supreme Court decision allowing manual vote recounts in Florida.

Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) gained ground in pre-session trading on the yesterday's news that the company has inked a memorandum of understanding with Chinese officials to deploy its CDMA mobile phone technology in China.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Federal Reserve is likely to soften its hawkish inflationary stance this month, and may cut rates early next year if the economy is weaker than expected.

Actuate Corp. (NASDAQ: ACTU) said it inked a software platform deal with software company eGain (Nasdaq: EGAN).

Expect the following technology stocks to be among Monday's most "http:="" www.zdii.com="" industry_list.asp?mode="news&doc_id=ZE506714&pic=Y"">actively traded issues: eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY), Intraware (Nasdaq: ITRA), 360networks (Nasdaq: TSIX).

The Nasdaq gained ground Friday, closing up 47.36 to 2,645.29. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 40.95 to 10,373.54.

At the Bell

The Dow Jones industrial average is expected to open down 4 points. The Standard & Poor's 500 index for December futures contracts lost 0.50 to 1320.00 at 7:20 a.m. EST in 24-hour electronic trading.

The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index slipped 8 to 323.07.

Asia

The major Asian markets were mixed. Hong Kong's Hang Seng jumped 117.81 to 14,559.24 and the Nikkei 225 rose 119.40 to 14,954.73. Singapore's Strait Times slipped 24.03 to 1930.97.

Europe

European markets all lost ground. London's FTSE 100 was down 48.5 to 6,121.90, the CAC 40 in Paris dropped 115.18 to 5,813.32 and the DAX in Frankfurt fell 90.08 to 6,422.83 at 7:10 a.m. EST.

Reuters contributed to this report.