Stocks fell sharply today as investors sold financial stocks and locked in profits after a six-week rally, overshawdowing announcement of the Oracle-Sun Microsystems deal.

Information technology company Oracle Corp. said today it is buying Sun Microsystems Inc. in a cash deal the company valued at $7.4 billion after IBM abandoned its bid to buy the networking equipment maker.

Three weeks after its emergency notification system failed to deliver messages to students, Virginia Tech ran a test of the system yesterday and said it apparently worked well. More than 35,000 subscribers to the VT Alerts system appear to have received a test message sent yesterday afternoon via text message, e-mail and telephone, said Tech spokesman Mark Owczarski.

Three weeks after its emergency notification system failed to deliver messages to students, Virginia Tech ran a test of the system yesterday and said it apparently worked well.