Top 10 News Items 12/07-12/11: Dollar Rises as Commodities Sell-Off; After BofA TARP News, Who's Next?; Goldman Amends '09 Compensation Package
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Here is a recap of the top news items from this week on Wall Street:
1. The trade that has dominated this market for the last... lets just say a while -- dollar down, gold and oil up -- finally took a breather this week. Gold, which last week was introduced to new all-time highs, fell almost 4% this week and closed around $1,115. Meanwhile, crude oil fell more than 8% from $75.80 on Monday to $69.64 at Friday's close.
2. Following BofA's (NYSE: BAC) recent TARP repayment news, reports that Citi (NYSE: C) and Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) will be the next banks to payback taxpayers ran a muck on Wall Street this week. Nothing has been made official, however. Shares of Citi closed this week down about 3% and Wells Fargo shares fell more than 5%.
3. In a move which could very well start a trend, Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) announced changes to its 2009 compensation program this week. As part of the move the 30 person management committee will receive no cash bonus for 2009, all bonuses will be 100% as equity "shares at risk" with sale restrictions for five years. The firm also strengthened the bonus recapture and claw-back provision. There will also be an advisory vote on the firm's compensation principles.
4. Regulators in the United Kingdom slapped bankers with a one-time tax of 50 percent on their large bonuses earlier this week. Many sources are suggesting that the tax comes as politicians in the UK are trying to win over potential voters ahead of the impending general election. The real question is: will US regulators soon implement such a tax?
5. As if the Dubai debt woes didn't worry the market enough last week, debt problems in the Eurozone shook investors this week. This time concerns were sparked when the S&P revised its outlook on Spain to Negative and, the next day, downgraded Greece's credit ratings.
6. On Tuesday morning, Kroger (NYSE: KR) issued quite disappointing Q3 results and guidance. Traders punished the stock, pushing it down by nearly 12% on that day.
7. After the close Monday, FedEx (NYSE: FDX) raised its Q2 outlook. To the dismay of Dow theorists, however, the better outlook from the shipper failed to boost broader stocks and the Dow closed down more than 100 points from the open of the trading session.
8. Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) separation from AOL (NYSE: AOL) was stamped this week, as AOL began trading publicly on its own on Thursday. Although the stock has been trading on a "when issued" basis for the last several weeks, interest in the equity was heavy.
9. Recent market leaders, Goldman, Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN), gave back some gains this week. With Apple and Amazon recently touching fresh 52-week highs, the analyst raise-the-price-target-train continued this week. Shares of Goldman closed at $166 this week, while Apple and Amazon closed at $194.67 and $134.15.
10. The fragile recovery received a boost from the consumer as better-than-expected retail sales figures for November were released on Friday. Retail sales rose 1.3 percent last month; improving on the 1.1 percent increase for the month prior said the Commerce Department. The jump was more than double of the 0.6 percent that was expected by economists.
1. The trade that has dominated this market for the last... lets just say a while -- dollar down, gold and oil up -- finally took a breather this week. Gold, which last week was introduced to new all-time highs, fell almost 4% this week and closed around $1,115. Meanwhile, crude oil fell more than 8% from $75.80 on Monday to $69.64 at Friday's close.
2. Following BofA's (NYSE: BAC) recent TARP repayment news, reports that Citi (NYSE: C) and Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) will be the next banks to payback taxpayers ran a muck on Wall Street this week. Nothing has been made official, however. Shares of Citi closed this week down about 3% and Wells Fargo shares fell more than 5%.
3. In a move which could very well start a trend, Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) announced changes to its 2009 compensation program this week. As part of the move the 30 person management committee will receive no cash bonus for 2009, all bonuses will be 100% as equity "shares at risk" with sale restrictions for five years. The firm also strengthened the bonus recapture and claw-back provision. There will also be an advisory vote on the firm's compensation principles.
4. Regulators in the United Kingdom slapped bankers with a one-time tax of 50 percent on their large bonuses earlier this week. Many sources are suggesting that the tax comes as politicians in the UK are trying to win over potential voters ahead of the impending general election. The real question is: will US regulators soon implement such a tax?
5. As if the Dubai debt woes didn't worry the market enough last week, debt problems in the Eurozone shook investors this week. This time concerns were sparked when the S&P revised its outlook on Spain to Negative and, the next day, downgraded Greece's credit ratings.
6. On Tuesday morning, Kroger (NYSE: KR) issued quite disappointing Q3 results and guidance. Traders punished the stock, pushing it down by nearly 12% on that day.
7. After the close Monday, FedEx (NYSE: FDX) raised its Q2 outlook. To the dismay of Dow theorists, however, the better outlook from the shipper failed to boost broader stocks and the Dow closed down more than 100 points from the open of the trading session.
8. Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) separation from AOL (NYSE: AOL) was stamped this week, as AOL began trading publicly on its own on Thursday. Although the stock has been trading on a "when issued" basis for the last several weeks, interest in the equity was heavy.
9. Recent market leaders, Goldman, Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN), gave back some gains this week. With Apple and Amazon recently touching fresh 52-week highs, the analyst raise-the-price-target-train continued this week. Shares of Goldman closed at $166 this week, while Apple and Amazon closed at $194.67 and $134.15.
10. The fragile recovery received a boost from the consumer as better-than-expected retail sales figures for November were released on Friday. Retail sales rose 1.3 percent last month; improving on the 1.1 percent increase for the month prior said the Commerce Department. The jump was more than double of the 0.6 percent that was expected by economists.
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