Some LargeCap Stocks to Keep an Eye on Today

Food and beverage giant PepsiCo said its fourth-quarter net income fell 5% to $1.37 billion, or 85 cents a share, from $1.43 billion, or 90 cents a share, a year earlier. Net revenue grew 37% to $18.16 billion from $13.3 billion the year before. The Wall Street consensus called for earnings of $1.04 a share on revenue of $17.62 billion. For 2011, Pepsi is targeting earnings per share growth of 7% to 8%. Shares of Pepsi fell 2.5% to $62.80 in premarket trading Thursday.

Mobile phone company Sprint Nextel said its fourth-quarter loss narrowed to $929 million, or 31 cents a share, from a year-earlier loss of $980 million, or 34 cents a share, a year earlier. Fourth-quarter revenue rose 6% to $8.3 billion from $7.87 billion. Analysts, on average, were expecting a loss of 30 cents a share on revenue of $8.15 billion. Shares of Sprint were popping 3.9% to $4.52. Sprint said during the fourth quarter it added nearly 1.1 million total wireless subscribers.

Networking giant Cisco disappointed Wall Street with its outlook for the second straight quarter. Shares of Cisco were tumbling 9.9% to $19.85 in premarket trading Thursday.

Mobile phone company Nokia is in talks to use software giant Microsoft's operating system on mobile phones, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing a person familiar with the situation. Nokia was down 3.4% to $11.33, while Microsoft edged 0.5% lower to $27.83 in premarket trading.

Credit Suisse, the Swiss bank, said Thursday it will now aim for return on equity of more than 15%, down from a previous target of above 18%. The return in 2010 was 14.4%. Shares of the company fell 5.8% to $43.93 in premarket trading.

Rio Tinto, the mining giant, said it plans to buy back $5 billion of its stock after earnings in 2010 soared to $14.3 billion. Rio Tinto fell 2.2% to $73.55.

Activision Blizzard beat fourth-quarter earnings estimates, but it issued weaker-than-expected guidance for 2011. Shares of the company tumbled 6.8% to $10.89.

French-U.S. telecommunications equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent reported that fourth-quarter net profit soared from the year before due to growing demand for broadband networks worldwide. Shares of the company surged 16.3% to $4.14.

The Deutsche Boerse and NYSE Euronext stock exchanges confirmed Wednesday they are in merger discussions. NYSE Euronext shares were down 0.1% to $38.06 in premarket trading Thursday after soaring 17.3% on Wednesday.

Distributed by IntelBuilder Social Media Platform