The markets traded mixed during the midday ahead of the Fed's rate decision. The Dow climbed 52 points to 12,436 while Nasdaq eased a point to 2349.
On the upside
The Wall Street Journal reported that Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S) and Clearwire (Nasdaq: CLWR) renewed discussions to build a high-speed wireless network.
Lockheed Martin ordered high electro-optic activity materials from Lumera (Nasdaq: LMRA) and will seek a commercial license for the polymer materials.
Fourth quarter earnings surged for Smurfit-Stone Container (Nasdaq: SSCC) due to cost cutting measures and higher prices.
On the downside
LECG (Nasdaq: XPRT) blamed a restructuring charge for cutting its fourth quarter guidance.
Zoran (Nasdaq: ZRAN) forecast first quarter results well below expectations prompting a downgrade.
VMware (NYSE: VMW) disappointed with fourth quarter revenue that fell short of estimates and forecast 2008 revenue growth below expectations.
In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of nearly 5 to 4 on the NYSE, but were edged out by margin of nearly 4 to 3 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks slipped 3 points to 699.
