M&A Activity

M&A = Mergers and Acquisitions. Yes, people do "sell out" to THE MAN. Shopping.com is being acquired by that Internet giant, E-Bay and Sun Microsystems is planning on buying StorageTek. What does this mean? The company being acquired usually spikes in price and the company doing the acquiring usually drops a bit in share price. If it is a good merger or acquisition, E-Bay and Sun will profit over the long-term from this strategy. If it is a bad merger, a la Time Warner and AOL, you will be holding a dud of a stock for awhile.

Sun definitely needs all the help they can get right now and this should help their long-term growth strategies. Sun also has lots of cash. We like companies with lots of cash.
E-Bay's acquisition of Shopping.com should bring a lot more cash to the table for the combined company, not that Ebay was hurting for cash in the first place. This should help them diversify their core business even further.