S&P Market Commentary

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09/07/2010 - 6:19am EST... ... Stock index futures lower on Globex. No economic reports today. See slow week following Labor Day weekend. Investors still pondering Friday's Nonfarm Payroll report, which was better than expected. Seeing little favorable reaction to Obama's proposed a six-year plan to rebuild U.S. infrastructure with an initial $50 billion investment and preparation for new business tax cuts. Will be awaiting tomorrow's Fed Beige Book, that will provide an economic outlook for the Sept. 21 FOMC meeting. Treasuries higher. Dollar index higher. Gold futures lower. Oil futures lower. /

S&P Research Notes

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S&P MAINTAINS HOLD OPINION ON SHARES OF BECKMAN COULTER  09/07/2010 9:20am
BEC	Hold	$46.50
BEC announces CEO, President and Chairman Scott Garrett has resigned, effectively immediately. BEC's board appoints J. Robert Hurley as interim President and CEO. Mr. Hurley has been SVP of human resources since 2005 and is chairman of Beckman Coulter Japan. We are surprised by the sudden resignation of Mr. Garrett who had been President since 2003 and CEO since 2005. Although BEC shares have been under pressure this year, mainly due to a FDA action to recall its troponin test kits, we believed Mr. Garrett's experience would guide BEC through its current challenges./J.Loo-CFA

Broker News and Views

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ORACLE CORP. 09/07/2010 - 8:59am
ORCL	$22.92

ORACLE CORP.UP 0.0, ORACLE (ORCL) NAMES HURD AS ITS PRESIDENT. MORGAN KEEGAN REITERATES OUTPERFORM Analyst Ajaykumar Kasargod tells salesforce ORCL adds tremendous op. leadership, strategic capability as it hires former HPQ CEO Mark Hurd as co-president of ORCL, a role he will share with Safra Catz. Given Hurd's experience at HPQ, and before that NCR, believes this hire is of special significance as ORCL focuses on growing the Systems biz (servers, storage) it bought as part of Sun Micro. acquisition. With ORCL set to post Q1 results 9/16/10, host Oracle Open World following week, believes stock currently undervalued. Maintains $28 tgt./B.Egli /