Before the bell 3-29-07: MCD, INTC, EBAY, SBUX, GM ...

Posted Mar 29th 2007 8:47AM by Melly Alazraki
Filed under: Before the Bell, Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades, Google (GOOG), Apple Inc (AAPL), eBay (EBAY), General Electric (GE), Starbucks (SBUX), Intel (INTC), General Motors (GM), XM Satellite Radio (XMSR), Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI), McDonald's (MCD), Citigroup Inc. (C), Advanced Micro Dev (AMD), Yum Brands (YUM), News Corp'B' (NWS), Freep't McMoRan Copper (FCX)

Main market news here.

Officials in China are investigating wages at McDonald's Corp. (NYSE: MCD), Yum Brands Inc. (NYSE: YUM) and KFC as reports reached labor official that they are paying their part-time workers less than the minimum wage of about $1 an hour.

Freeport-McMoRan Copper (NYSE: FCX) was upgraded from Neutral to Overweight by JP Morgan.

Intel Corp. (NYSE: INTC) announced yesterday a major design change in its chips. The new design will include a feature used by rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD), according to the Wall Street Journal. Analysts say the move is good news for Intel and spells trouble for AMD.

It seems that everybody's drooling over Apple Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AAPL) upcoming iPhone. Well, not quite. Some think Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone as margins are too thin.

Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) has big plans this year. It wants to double branches in China and considers a restructuring plan to cut costs that could eliminate 15,000 jobs.

eBay Inc.'s (NASDAQ: EBAY) Skype released a new version yesterday that incorporates eBay's PayPal online payment feature.

According to the New York Times, General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) execs will not be paid cash bonuses for the second straight year.

General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) NBC studios managed to extend beauty pageants Miss Universe and Miss USA through 2010.

News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) MySpace announced a partnership with former Disney CEO Michael Eisner to debut his new original show "Prom Queen" mystery series hours before it appears on any other site. Last week News Corp. and NBC announced plans for an online video platform. All these efforts in order to put the heat on Google Inc.'s (NASDAQ: GOOG) YouTube and grow the video side of MySpace.

Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) and the Polish branch of the AmRest restaurant group signed a preliminary agreement to open branches of Starbucks in Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary.

Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) and XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: XMSR) merger has only a 30% chance to come to fruition? Apparently, that's the going odds on Wall Street at the moment.

Tags: aapl, amd, c, ebay, fcx, ge, gm, goog, intc, mcd, nws, sbux, siri, xmsr, yum