Top 10 News Items 4/20-4/24: Fed's Stress Test Metrics Released; Major Tech Companies Issue Earnings; Ford (F) Blows-Out Q1 Expectations

April 24, 2009 4:22 PM EDT

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

1. On Friday, the Fed released the specific criterion used for its bank stress tests, as they Street had been expecting. The Fed said the 19 firms collectively hold two-thirds of the assets and more than one‐half of the loans in the U.S. banking system. The official results of the stress test are expected to be released to the public May 4th. Click here for our full report. Also, with the release of the processes and methodologies used for the test, regulators confirmed earlier rumors that banks may be able to apply to exchange existing preferred stock to meet their buffer requirements.

2. Numerous high-profile tech companies issued their latest quarters results this week: IBM (NYSE: IBM), Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN), Seagate (NYSE: STX), SanDisk (Nasdaq: SNDK), AMD (NYSE: AMD), Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO), eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY), Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) all reported. For the most part, results came in better-than-expected. The Technology SPDR ETF (NYSE: XLK) finished this week 1.5% despite a 3% drop on Monday.

3. Ford (NYSE: F) shattered analysts Q1 estimates on Friday, sending its stock surging more than 20% during the day. The automaker reported a loss of $0.75 for the quarter, much better than the Street loss estimate of $1.23. Ford ended Q1 with Automotive gross cash of $21.3 billion, up from $13.4 billion.

4. As if Wall Street wasn't already dealing with a confidence-complex, Bank of America's (NYSE: BAC) Ken Lewis said that Ben Bernanke and former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson pressured him not to discuss some key details related to the Merrill Lynch deal. Specifically, Lewis told prosecutors that he felt Bernanke and Paulson were instructing him to keep silent about deepening financial difficulties at Merrill.

5. The last round of Q1 financial results came in this week: Bank of America, State Street (NYSE: STT), Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC), Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) and American Express (NYSE: AXP) reported. After falling more than 11% on Monday, the Financial Select SPDR (NYSE: XLF) finished this week with an 11% jump during the last 4 days of trading.

6. Following talks between Sun Micro (Nasdaq: JAVA) and IBM which broke-down earlier this month, Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) jumped in with a surprise bid of $9.50 per share for JAVA. Shares of Sun jumped more than 36% on the news. Click here for the full report.

7. The International Monetary Fund issued a report this week with some concerning news: U.S. and European banks may need at least another $875 billion in equity. This level of investment would bring tangible common equity to tangible assets to 4 percent, the level prevailing before the crisis. The IMF said this amount of capital would be necesary to restore banks' buffers to levels that the market believes would permit banks to operate in today's environment. Click here for the full report. Also on the financial front, analysts at Keefe Bruyette Woods put out a research note suggesting that the banking industry needs another $1 billion in capital.

8. Two of the most popular consumer staple companies reported this week: Pepsi (NYSE:PEP) and Coke (NYSE: KO). Showing that M&A activity is slowing returning to this market, Pepsi also announced that it has proposed to acquire all of the outstanding shares of common stock it does not already own in its two largest anchor bottlers, The Pepsi Bottling Group (NYSE: PBG) and PepsiAmericas (NYSE: PAS), at a value of $29.50 per share for The Pepsi Bottling Group and $23.27 per share for PepsiAmericas.

9. The world's largest restaurant chain, McDonald's (NYSE: MCD) reported mixed Q1 earnings on Wednesday. Shares of McDonald's closed this week about 3% lower than last Friday.

10. Broadcom (Nasdaq: BRCM) announced Tuesday that it has made a proposal to the Emulex (NYSE: ELX) Board of Directors to acquire all the outstanding shares of Emulex common stock for $9.25 per share in cash, representing a total equity value of approximately $764 million. Shares of Emulex surged more than 55% on the news.

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• StreetInsider.com Top 10 News Items for the Week

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