Top 10 News Items for the Week of July 21-25: American Express (AXP), Bank of America (BAC), Costco (COST), More...

July 25, 2008 1:31 PM EDT

StreetInsider.com's Top 10 News Items for the Week of July 21-25:

1. Oil down, natural gas and other commodities continued their recent sell-off

2. Late Monday, American Express (NYSE: AXP) reported disappointing results and guidance. The news sent fears through the market that the high end U.S. consumer is slowing down. American Express fell 7% on Tuesday after the news.

3. On Wednesday, Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ: COST) said earnings per share for the fourth quarter are expected to be well below the current First Call consensus earnings per share estimate of $1.00.

4. On Monday, Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) reported Q2 EPS of $0.72, above the analyst consensus of $0.53. Revenues came in at $20.32 billion, versus the consensus of $18.37 billion.

5. Late Monday, Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) reported better-than-expected Q3 results, but gave disappointing Q4 guidance.

6. Late Tuesday, Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM) reported a Q2 loss of $3.34 per share, versus the analyst estimate of ($1.05). Boosted loan loss reserve by $3.74 billion. After the news, Moody's placed WaMu's ratings on review for possible downgrade.

7. On Monday, Roche (OTC: RHHBY) proposed to acquire partner Genentech (NYSE: DNA) for US$89.00 per share in cash, or a total payment of approximately US$43.7 billion to equity holders of Genentech other than Roche. Genentech is reviewing the offer. Genentech rose nearly 15% to $94 on the new Monday on hopes of a higher bid.

8. On Monday, Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO) reached an agreement with Carl Icahn to settle their pending proxy contest related to the Company's 2008 annual meeting of stockholders. Icahn will be appointed the Yahoo! board and two others from Icahn's slate of directors will be nominated to the board.

9. Wednesday evening, Nokia (NYSE: NOK) and Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) entered into a new agreement covering various standards including GSM, EDGE, CDMA, WCDMA, HSDPA, OFDM, WiMAX, LTE and other technologies. The agreement will result in settlement of all litigation between the companies, including the withdrawal by Nokia of its complaint to the European Commission. Qualcomm rose 17% Thursday on the news.

10. The FCC moves to finally approve the Sirius (Nasdaq: SIRI) and XM (Nasdaq: XMSR) merger.

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• StreetInsider.com Top 10 News Items for the Week

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