Top 10 News Items 7/6-7/10: "Old" GM Shares Officially Halted; Alcoa Kicks Off Q2 Earnings Season with a Beat; Continuing Claims Soar to Record 6.88M

July 10, 2009 4:28 PM EDT

Here is a recap of the top news items from this week on Wall Street:

1. Monday, a bankruptcy court approved the sale of "old" GM (OTC: GMGMQ) assets, officially marking the day of the "new" GM's emergence. Shares of the stock continued trading wildly, however, even as GM's management issued a press release reminding investors that the common shares will have no value in bankruptcy. As news hit on Friday that GM had officially completed its restructuring, investors believed they were buying the new and improved GM stock. Surging as much as 40% during Friday's trading session. It wasn't til after 2pm ET that the stock was halted by the Pink Sheets, after prodding from the staff at StreetInsider.com and others.

2. Alcoa (NYSE: AA) kicked off the Q2 earnings season this week, reporting a better-than-expected adj-loss of $0.26. Shares of Alcoa finished the week down 5.5%.

3. Initial jobless claims for the week came in at 565,000, which compares to economists estimates of 603,000. Continuing claims totaled a record 6.883 million, revised higher from 6.724 million.

4. According to data from the American Bankers Associations, consumer delinquencies rose again in Q109 as job losses mounted. Balances on the bank card delinquencies, and delinquencies for the home equity category hit new record levels during the quarter. Bank card delinquencies rose 23 basis points to 4.75%, a new record. Delinquencies for the home equity category also hit record highs. Home equity loan delinquencies rose 49 basis points to 3.52% of accounts, and home equity lines of credit delinquencies rose 43 basis points to 1.89% of accounts.

5. Thursday, retail sales numbers for the month of June were released. For the most part, numbers looked weaker-than-expected, but, at the same time, numerous retailers boosted guidance, including: TJX (NYSE: TJX), JCPenney (NYSE: JCP), Aeropostale (NYSE: ARO) and Gymboree (Nasdaq: GYMB).

6. Directly addressing its battle with Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) -- especially after the recent release of Bing -- Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) announced that it is planning to launch an operating system for PCs. Shares of Google finished up 1.4% to $414.40.

7. Following weeks of on-going battles between the three companies, Data Domain (NASDAQ: DDUP) announced earlier this week that it has entered into a definitive merger agreement with EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC), terminating the deal with NetApp (Nasdaq: NTAP). EMC will acquire all of the outstanding shares of Data Domain common stock for $33.50 per share in cash. Click here for the full report.

8. A Russian immigrant and ex-Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) employee was arrested July 3rd and charged with stealing secret computer trading codes from the New York-based investment bank. Aleynikov told U.S. agents he took files for proprietary secret computer trading codes used for "sophisticated, high-speed and high-volume trades on various stock and commodities markets." Aleynikov downloaded the files from the Web site to his home computer, his laptop computer and a portable memory devise. The news did not affect Goldman's stock price.

9. Following Lear's bankruptcy filing, shares of American Axle (NYSE: AXL) plunged nearly 50% this week as bankruptcy fears continued to weigh on the troubled sector. The stock closed the week at $1.79, down from $3.26 at the beginning of the week.

10. Crude oil continued its move lower this week, adding another 9% to the recent downside. The commodity finished the week at $59.85, marking a 2-month low.

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• Initial Jobless Claims
• StreetInsider.com Top 10 News Items for the Week
• Crude Oil
• Bankruptcy
• Layoffs

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