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Party may be over -- for now
Futures point to sluggish start for stocks after 4-day rally; oil stabilizes; dollar jumps vs euro.
November 8, 2005: 8:15 AM EST

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Stocks could be in for a sluggish start Tuesday following four days of gains.

S&P and Nasdaq futures edged lower, pointing to a weak open for the market.

Stocks rose for the fourth straight session Monday as a sharp drop in crude oil prices eased investors' worries about inflation and pressure on corporate profits.

But whether oil gives another boost to stocks Tuesday remains to be seen.

Crude oil for December delivery fell 12 cents to $59.35 a barrel in early electronic trading, while the December contract for Brent crude fell 37 cents to $57.68.

The dollar jumped to a two-year high against the euro, which got hurt as investors eyed another day of rioting outside Paris, and rose against the yen.

Treasury prices rose, cutting the yield on the 10-year note to 4.59 percent from 4.62 percent late Monday. Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions.

The are no major economic reports due.

Overseas, major markets in Asia closed mixed after the United States and China announced a deal to limit Chinese textile exports to the U.S.

European markets rose in morning trading despite concerns about continued violence in immigrant communities outside of Paris.

Media stocks could get a lift Tuesday after General Electric's (Research) NBC unit and Viacom's (Research) CBS unveiled separate plans late Monday to sell some of their prime-time shows to viewers to watch at their leisure, without commercials, for 99 cents an episode, a move that could change the economics of the television business.

And Grokster announced it had essentially shut down its service that helped users get free movie and music downloads, and said in a notice on the site that it planned to have a legal, free service soon. It also reportedly agreed to pay $50 million to the record label's trade group. The service lost a Supreme Court case in June.

In other corporate news, financier Carl Icahn has bought a 9.3 percent stake in Fairmont Hotels & Resorts (Research), according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission in which he said he may push management to sell the company or many of its assets to raise share price.

And the Wall Street Journal reported that for the first time Advance Micro Devices (Research) had passed Intel (Research) in supplying chips for personal computers sold in U.S. stores in October, although Intel still has a lead overall due to sales directly to consumers, by companies such as No. 1 PC maker Dell.

Still, the win by AMD closes a greater than 60 percentage-point market share gap as recently as June, the report said.

For a more detailed look at the markets before the open, click here.  Top of page

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