Tuesday's Headlines: American Express
(At 7:24 a.m. EDT)
Tuesday's Early Headlines
Goldman, Morgan, JPMorgan Want to Repay TARP Funds.
Goldman Sachs
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,
Morgan Stanley
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, and
JPMorgan Chase
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have applied to refund a combined $45 billion of government funds,
Bloomberg
reported citing people familiar with the matter. The three banks need approval from the
Federal Reserve
to return the money, according to the report.
All three stocks were trading fractionally higher in the premarket session Tuesday.
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American Express Aims to Save $800 Million Through Cuts.
American Express
(AXP) - Get American Express Company Report
said late Monday it will cut roughly 4,000 jobs, or about 6% of its workforce, as part of an effort aimed at saving roughly $800 million for the rest of the year. The announcement comes seven months after AmEx reduced its headcount by 7,000 workers. Shares were up 3% in the premarket session.
BlackRock Could Buy Toxic Assets.
BlackRock
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preliminarily has been granted a second-round interview with the Treasury Department to become one of a few money managers to buy toxic assets from U.S. banks, using taxpayer money,
The Wall Street Journal
reports, citing people familiar with the matter.
Local Banks Could Face Big Losses.
Small and midsize U.S. banks could suffer $100 billion in losses generated by commercial real-estate loans by the end 2010 if economic woes deepen, according to research conducted by
The Wall Street Journal
. Total losses at those banks could surpass $200 billion over that period, according to the
Journal's
analysis, which utilized the same worst-case scenario employed by the government's stress tests of 19 major U.S. banks.
Government to Unveil Stricter Fuel Goals.
President Obama will propose the first-ever national emission limits for cars and trucks as well as average mileage requirements of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016, all expected to cost consumers an extra $1,300 per vehicle. The announcement is expected later Tuesday.
India's Sensex index surged 17% Monday after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Congress Party won nationwide elections, but investors retraced some of those gains Tuesday as the record one-day advance was considered overdone.
Earnings and Economic News
Home Depot Beats Estimates, Reaffirms Forecast
Home Depot
(HD) - Get Home Depot, Inc. Report
reported first-quarter adjusted earnings of $587 million, or 35 cents a share, while sales fell 9.7% from the year-ago quarter to $16.2 billion. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected Home Depot to report earnings of 29 cents a share on revenue of $15.86 billion.
Elsewhere,
Dick's Sporting Goods
(DKS) - Get Dick's Sporting Goods, Inc. Report
beat first-quarter earnings forecasts and guided inline for the full year.
JA Solar
(JASO)
reported a wider-than-expected loss for the quarter of 18 cents a share. JA Solar said it has no plans to give further guidance on its 2009 revenue or production unless and until the co has better visibility of the global solar market conditions in the coming quarters.
Dick's Sporting Goods shares were up nearly 5% in the premarket session, and JA Solar was rising 5.3%
Home Depot reaffirmed it expects fiscal 2009 sales down 9%, with negative comparable- store sales in the high-single-digit area and per-share earnings from continuing operations down 7%. Shares were down 1.5% ahead of Tuesday's open after a 6.6% jump on Monday.
On the economic calendar, housing starts for April will be released at 8:30 a.m. EDT, with economists expecting the number to rise to 527,000 from 510,000 in March. Building permits for April are expected to increase to 530,000 from 516,000 in March.
