Top 10 News Items 1/12-1/16: BofA Gets More Federal Aid, Reports Q4 Loss, Cuts Dividend; Job's to Take Medical Leave; Citi and Morgan Stanley Combine Brokerage Units

January 16, 2009 4:11 PM EST

This is a recap of the top news items for this week on Wall Street:

1. Financials were under extremely heavy pressure this week, as investors are beginning to accept that the government's TARP and stimulus packages may not be as effective in helping the economy as previously expected. With its stock tanking (down 49% so far in '09), Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) moved up its earnings release date to Friday. The company reported a Q4 loss of $0.48, announced that it will get an additional $20 billion from the government, and also cut its dividend to $0.01. Click here for the full report.

2. Wednesday, Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) CEO, Steve Jobs, informed employees and shareholders that he would be taking a medical leave of absence until June as he has found out that his health-related issues are more serious than previously thought. Shares of Apple sank more than 10% in after-hours trading, but rebounded and finished Thursday's trading session down only 2.2%.

3. Citigroup (NYSE: C) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) agreed to form a brokerage joint venture, which will be called Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.

4. Citi also moved its earnings release up to this week in the face of a drastically sliding stock price. The bank reported a Q4 loss of $1.72 and also announced that it will realign into 2 businesses: Citicorp and Citi Holdings.

5. With the financial markets still struggling to stabilize, the US Senate approved the release of the $350 billion second half of the TARP.

6. Joining the other 2 major financials, JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) also bumped its earnings report to this week. The bank actually reported a better-than-expected profit, but the stock sold off as the rest of the financials tanked.

7. Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) announced that Autodesk's (Nasdaq: ADSK) Carol Bartz is to become the company's new CEO. Yahoo!'s President, Sue Decker, announced that she would be leaving after she was not named the next CEO, despite being widely thought of as the top option.

8. Late Thursday night, CF Industries (NYSE: CF) disclosed that it had offered to acquire Terra Industries (NYSE: TRA) in a deal valued at $2.1 billion. Shares of Terra surged more than 26% on Friday on the news.

9. Also on the dusty M&A front, Abbott Labs (NYSE: ABT) announced that it will acquire Advanced Medical Optics (NYSE: EYE) for $22 per share in cash, putting the deal at a total value of $2.8 billion. Shares of EYE jumped nearly 150% on the buyout.

10. Layoffs continue to dampen the financial landscape this week. Among some of the more notable ones were: Kennametal (NYSE: KMT) cut 1,200 jobs, Cummins (NYSE: CMI), Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL), Seagate (NYSE: STX) to cut 6% of workforce, Motorola (NYSE: MOT) cutting 4,000 jobs, Autodesk cutting 10% of workforce, Marshall & Ilsley (NYSE: MI) to cut 8% of workforce and WellPoint (NYSE: WLP) to cut 1,500 jobs. To view all the Layoff news as it breaks, visit StreetInsider.com's Layoff's entity page.

Related Categories

Special Reports

Stocks Mentioned

Related Entities

• JPMorgan
• Citi
• Morgan Stanley
• Banc of America
• Steve Jobs
• Dividend
• StreetInsider.com Top 10 News Items for the Week
• Layoffs

Add Your Comment

Name

Subject

Body

Verification can't see the text?
click here to refresh the image.
what's this?