Stocks in the news: Alcoa, Nokia, Apple

Alcoa (AA), the aluminum giant, said late Monday that it will chop its dividend to 3 cents a share from 17 cents a share, sell $1.1 billion worth of shares in a public offering and cut costs by more than $2.4 billion annually by 2010 to cope with the economic downturn. It hopes its actions will boost working capital by $800 million this year and reduce capital spending by an additional $1 billion in 2010. AA shares are down over 11 percent in premarket trade.

Nokia (NOK), the world's largest handset maker, said Tuesday it will lay off 1,700 people worldwide to cut costs. It will scale sales, marketing and technology management as the global economic downturn strikes deeper into the mobile phone sector.