IBM-Sun: Do They Have a Deal? Does It Matter?

On Monday, the markets started to question whether International Business Machines (IBM) and Sun Microsystems (JAVA) will really get a deal done.

It was on March 19 that The Wall Street Journal reported that IBM was in talks to acquire Sun Micro. But it wasn’t until Monday that stock prices of the two companies really started to diverge, a sign perhaps that traders suddenly believed the deal could be endangered.

But there was no news that had been announced and no expectation of any news. IBM, which closed at $92.66 when news of the talks were reported on March 19, is still trading relatively up at $94.52. But Sun shares took a hit. Two weeks ago, they were held aloft by an 80 percent jump to around $8.63. The spur was the tempting merger price IBM was offering, which was reported to be in the range of $10 to $11. Monday, Sun’s shares fell to $7.24, down nearly eight percent on the day and the lowest since the talks were announced. (The shares are up 14 cents, or 1.9 percent, to $7.38 today.)

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