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1006 EST 8March2010
Ford investors could take profits: Barron's

Ford Motor Co's shares have risen 800 percent in little more than a year; and it could be time for investors to take profits, Barron's publication said on Sunday.

The rise in Ford's shares is well grounded, Barron's wrote, after exceeding recent sales expectations; but still, the U.S. auto industry faces a bumpy road. Ford's shares haven't been this high since 2005, it said.

Barron's says that Ford expects sales growth to continue. 'But that doesn't mean its shares will accelerate,' the publication says.

Ford shares fell 1.1 percent to $12.86.

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1001 EST 8March2010
Job market gauge up for 6th straight mo: report

The U.S. job market continued to improve in February for the sixth consecutive month, largely due to a strong recovery in manufacturing production, a research group said on Monday.

The Conference Board, a private research group, said its Employment Trends Index rose to 93.5 in February from 93.2 in January.

Over the last six months the index has climbed 13.4 percent, marking its highest six-month growth rate since 1994. The group said expects this trend to hold steady.

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0951 ET 08Mar2010
Cisco Systems up as JP Morgan rates 'overweight'

Shares in Cisco Systems Inc rose 0.9 percent to $25.44 on Monday after JP Morgan assumed coverage of the stock with an 'overweight' rating and a price target of $28.

'We believe the growth in mobile data and server virtualization will result in growth in the IP routing and Ethernet switching markets,' JP Morgan said.

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0938 ET 08Mar2010-US STOCKS SNAPSHOT
Wall St opens touch higher; McDonald's up

U.S. stocks opened slightly higher on Monday, as investors digested Friday's bullish payrolls data and as McDonald's Corp reported that same-store sales increased in February.

The Dow Jones industrial average was up 10.80 points, or 0.10 percent, at 10,577.00. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 0.84 points, or 0.07 percent, at 1,139.54. The Nasdaq Composite Index added 1.03 points, or 0.04 percent, at 2,327.38.

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0909 EST 8March2010
Futures point to flat open after recent rally

U.S. stock index futures pointed to a flat open on Monday, following a strong rally to end last week's session, when the Nasdaq closed at an 18-month high on better-than-expected February payroll data.

S&P 500 futures added 1.4 points and were even with fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures gained 4 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 3 points.

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0905 EST 8March2010
Yahoo shares rise on JMP Securities upgrade

JMP Securities upgraded Yahoo Inc to 'market outperform' from 'market perform' and said it expects the company to benefit from a search partnership with Microsoft Corp.

The companies should have a search market share of about 30 percent after the deal, the brokerage wrote in a note to clients.

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Shares of Yahoo rose 1.9 percent to $16.37 before the bell while Microsoft, a Dow component, was down 3 cents at $28.56.

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0857 ET 8March2010
Applied Materials ups dividend, oks buyback

Applied Materials Inc shares rose 2.9 percent to $12.64 in premarket trade on Monday after the producer of chip-making gear boosted its quarterly dividend by 17 percent to 7 cents per share and approved a three-year, $2 billion share repurchase plan.

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0804 EST 8March2010-McDonald's Feb same
store sales up 4.8 pct

McDonald's Corp said on Monday that global comparable sales increased 4.8 percent for February and systemwide sales rose 11.2 percent to 6.4 percent in constant currencies for the month.

U.S. comparable sales rose 0.6 percent, and comparable sales in Europe climbed 5.4 percent.

McDonald's shares advanced 1 percent to $64.23 premarket. Reuters Messaging:rm://[e-mail] Keywords: MARKETS STOCKSNEWS

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