U.S. Stock Futures Rally on Takeover Speculation; Alcoa Climbs By Michael Patterson Nov. 8 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stock-index futures climbed after BHP Billiton Ltd.'s offer to buy Rio Tinto Group spurred speculation of more takeovers in the metals industry and Ford Motor Co. said its third-quarter loss narrowed. Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., the world's second- largest copper producer, and Alcoa Inc., the second-biggest aluminum company, rallied after Rio Tinto rejected BHP Billiton's offer because it was too low. Ford climbed after lower costs helped it beat analysts' estimates. Standard & Poor's 500 Index futures expiring in December added 5.7 to 1,488.5 at 7:48 a.m. in New York. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures gained 56 to 13,411. Nasdaq-100 Index futures decreased 2 to 2,179, dragged down by a 6.9 percent drop in Cisco Systems Inc. Miners and other producers of raw materials have rallied 25 percent over the past year, the second-best performance among 10 industries in the S&P 500, as a surging global economy boosts demand for commodities. Prospects of consolidation in the metals industry may help the U.S. stock market recover from its biggest drop since Aug. 9 after New York widened its probe of the mortgage industry and the dollar tumbled yesterday. Mining Merger Alcoa increased $1.10 to $38.50. Freeport-McMoRan climbed $5.90 to $114. Gold Fields Ltd. American depositary receipts added 91 cents to $19.01. BHP, based in Melbourne, said it wrote to the Rio board with a merger plan and to try to arrange a meeting. Rio's ADRs rallied 32 percent to $471. The merged miners would control 36 percent of the iron-ore market and be the biggest supplier of energy coal and copper, accounting for 14 percent and 13 percent of market share globally, Citigroup Inc. said. BHP's ADRs jumped $3 TO $83.35. Ford, the second-largest U.S. automaker, climbed 34 cents to $8.58. Lowering costs through plant closings and job cuts helped Ford narrow its third-quarter loss to $380 million. Excluding costs the company considers one-time items, Ford's loss was $24 million, or 1 cent a share. On that basis, analysts expected a loss of 47 cents, the average of 14 estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Cisco, the biggest maker of computer-networking equipment, plunged $2.26 to $30.49 after Chief Executive Officer John Chambers said a ``dramatic'' decline in sales to automobile and financial companies is curbing growth.
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