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Top 10 News Items 5/7-5/11: JPMorgan's Big Blunder; Euro Worries Back in the Headlines; Cisco's Outlook Disappoints

May 11, 2012 4:58 PM EDT
Here is a recap of the top news items from this week on Wall Street:

1. JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) surprised the financial world this week with an unscheduled conference call to announce significant mark-to-market losses in the company's CIO unit related to a synthetic credit portfolio. The bank said it sees a loss of $800 million in its CIO unit, versus a previously-expected profit of up to $200 million. While shares of JPMorgan tumbled more than 9 percent on Friday, most other banks were down 2-4 percent. Late Friday, Fitch downgraded the bank's main rating to A+.

2. Headlines moved back across the pond this week as traders considered renewed concerns on Greece and Spain. While numerous reports early in the week said Greece could run out of cash by the end of next month, Spanish banks plunged as Bankia Group was nationalized. News the EFSF has decided to pay out the next installment of Greece's bailout fund offered some relief, but continued political turmoil lingers and could weigh on financial markets moving forward.

3. Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) shares sunk more than 10 percent on Thursday following better-than-expected Q3 results but guidance which was light. The company reported sales of $11.6 billion and EPS of 48 cents. Cisco is looking for Q4 sales growth of about 2-5 percent and EPS of 44-46 cents.

4. Green Mountain Coffee (Nasdaq: GMCR) CEO Robert Stiller filed 144 paperwork to sell 5,000,000 shares pursuant to a margin sell-out this week. The call comes less than a week after a 50 percent plunge in the stock amid disappointing Q2 results and guidance. Stiller liquidated his position in Krispy Kreme (NYSE: KKD) in order to free up enough capital. Another Green Mountain exec, director William Davis, also had a margin call on his position.

5. Warren Buffett hosted the Bershire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A) (NYSE: BRK-B) annual meeting last weekend. Amid a number of other highlights, The Oracle disclosed a recent failed $22 billion takeover bid. Also interesting: 8,616 voted against the Oracle as a Director of the company. This is up from the 8,407 "Against" votes in 2011 and up from the 6,232 "Against" votes in 2010.

6. Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) raised its quarterly dividend from 21 cents per share to 22.5 cents per share on Monday. The yield on the new payout is 3.2 percent. Intel shares closed the week modestly lower.

7. The US Treasury sold more than 188 million shares of AIG (NYSE: AIG) this week. The company bought some 65 million shares at $30.50. AIG shares closed about 3 percent lower this week.

8. SodaStream (Nasdaq: SODA) shares charged 26 percent higher on Wednesday amid solid Q1 results. The company posted EPS of $0.55, $0.19 better than the analyst estimate of $0.36, on sales of $87.9 million versus the consensus estimate of $56.78 million. The company also raised its FY12 sales growth outlook from 28-33% to 42-50%.

9. Elsewhere on the earnings front: Fossil (Nasdaq: FOSL), Macy's (NYSE: M), News Corp. (Nasdaq: NWSA), Activision Blizzard (Nasdaq: ATVI), Nuance (Nasdaq: NUAN), NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA), Monster Beverage (Nasdaq: MNST), Kohl's (NYSE: KSS), Disney (NYSE: DIS) and Priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN).

10. PPI for the month of April was down 0.2% Friday, compared to the Street estimate of no change. Core PPI was up 0.2%, inline with the economist estimate.


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