share prices

Alibaba Group CEO Jack Ma told the the AllThingsD D9 conference that Yahoo should be broken into pieces. Ma may be in the midst of a beef with the search company, which holds a major stake in his firm, but despite the idea's source, a break-up could make sense financially.

Exxon Mobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips are all trading near multi-year highs, and even BP shares have done well recently. Still, while the high oil prices that have been pinching consumers have been great for the industry, there are good reasons not to count on those high stock values lasting.

Companies that have piled up cash over the past few years are finding one good use for it: Repurchasing their own shares. January alone saw $57 billion in buybacks, compared with $357 billion for all of 2010. While buybacks don't add value, they do give investors more options.

Earlier Friday in London trading, shares of BP gained on rumors the largest oil company in the world, Exxon Mobil, is considering a bid for the oil company responsible for the largest oil spill in the U.S., Reuters reported.

At an anticipated $16 billion, General Motors' pending initial public offering was expected to be the second largest in history. Now, the No. 1 U.S. automaker is revising IPO expectations downward, anticipating it will bring in $8 billion to $10 billion when shares go public in November.

Index futures, index options, equity options and security futures are all set to expire Friday in a phenomenon known as the "quadruple witching" hour. It usually signals a time of higher trading volumes and surprises on Wall Street, but this time, investor uncertainty is likely to keep trades low.

The following is a round-up of news likely to affect stock prices today: Novartis (NVS) has raised its stake in eye-care company Alcon (ACL) to 77% by buying Nestlé's majority stake for $28.1 billion, the Swiss drug giant said Monday, and has set its sights on acquiring the rest. Novartis...

When a highly successful money manager like Hussman crunches the numbers and decides that shares are priced to disappoint -- perhaps for the next decade -- intelligent investors would do well to pay attention.