On the upside
Anheuser Busch (NYSE: BUD) agreed to a sweetened $52 billion takeover bid from Inbev to create the world's largest brewer and the 4th-largest consumer product company.
The Treasury and the Federal Reserve said that they would provide credit to Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) which hold a combined $5.3 trillion in mortgage debt.
Republic Services (NYSE: RSG) received a $6.19 billion all-cash offer from Waste Management (NYSE: WMI), the nation's largest garbage hauler and landfill operator.
On the downside
John Bovenzi, the chief operating officer of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., has taken over IndyMac (NYSE: IMB) as its new CEO. The financial services company collapsed after depositors made a run on the bank last week.Shares of Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH) fell to a 20-year low as its cost of debt protection rose. Meanwhile, many analysts concluded that emergency funding from the government to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would not extend to investment banks.
Internet portal Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) turned down the latest offer to sell its search operations to Microsoft (NYSE: MSFT). Billionaire investor Carl Icahn had offered a competing slate of board members at Yahoo's upcoming board meeting.
In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a slim margin on the NYSE, but were outpaced by a margin of nearly 5 to 4 on Nasdaq. The
Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks lost 4 points to 669.
