When the stock market opens this morning, one deal stock—Yahoo—is poised to tumble, while another is set to soar.

Shares of Sprint Nextel are expected to surge following reports in the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal that Deutsche Telekom is weighing a takeover of Sprint.

Both papers are following a report over the weekend in the German magazine Der Spiegel, and both caution that the plan is in its preliminary stages and is one of several options the former German monopoly is considering. No offer has been made.

Driving the idea of a takeover is a sluggish core market in Germany and a price war in the United States, where the No. 4 wireless provider, Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile, is seen as the most vulnerable.

All sorts of rumors have swirled around Sprint Nextel for months. There was talk it would spin off Nextel, or that Verizon Wireless or Carlos Slim might be interested in making a bid.

The rumors have come as Sprint's stock price has been battered, sliding 65 percent from last summer, to under $8. The company has a market value of $22 billion, which as the Financial Times notes, Deutsche Telekom "could easily pay after reducing debt substantially over the past six years." The rising value of the euro over the dollar would also make a deal for Sprint Nextel more affordable.

The New York Times' DealBook blog is skeptical, however, citing Sprint's troubles and noting that the companies have two different wireless technologies (C.D.M.A. for Sprint, G.S.M. for T-Mobile). The companies have not held any discussions, DealBook says.
 
Still, an acquisition with Sprint Nextel would lift T-Mobile from No. 4 in the U.S. wireless market to No. 1, tripling its number of subscribers to nearly 90 million.

In March, Merrill Lynch analysts wrote that Sprint Nextel's efforts to cut prices to attract customers could drive a merger with T-Mobile.

"In such a price-war scenario, we think T-Mobile would face the most pressure, and Deutsche Telekom would see the increased urgency to drive market repair," the Merrill Lynch report said.