Archives

Amid a "hat trick" of new bad economic data (sales of new homes plummet, businesses cut orders, and jobless claims soar), President Barack Obama's economic team is weighing up a two-part bailout for the banking sector, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The corporate ax cut another 11,500 jobs on Tuesday from a wide cross-section of the U.S. economy, CNNMoney.com reports. It's a considerably better tally than Monday, but the steady announcements of factory closings and layoffs are adding up to one bloody January. "In January alone, companies have announced more 211,500 job cuts," CNNMoney.com writes.

It's a done deal. Pfizer, the world's largest drugmaker, will be taking over its smaller rival Wyeth in a deal valued at $68 billion, the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and New York Times all report this morning. It is the largest acquisition in the pharma sector since Glaxo Wellcome acquired SmithKline Beecham for $76 billion in 2000, the WSJ writes.

The potential merge between pharmaceutical goliaths Pfizer and Wyeth gets top billing in the Wall Street Journal and on Bloomberg. If realized, the merge “would create a behemoth with combined revenue of about $75 billion and a line of blockbuster drugs including Pfizer's cholesterol drug Lipitor and Wyeth's pediatric vaccine Prevnar,” the WSJ writes.

What recession? That was the defiant message Apple sent to the markets following the close of trade on Wednesday, posting better-than-expected profits on record sales last quarter, thanks to unsinkable demand for the iPod and iPhone. Consumers purchased more than $10 billion worth of Apple products last quarter, a first for the company.

A potential white knight has emerged for the precarious Chrysler: Italy's Fiat, business pages across the U.S. and Europe are proclaiming this morning. According to the Wall Street Journal, the two automakers could announce a no-money-down deal in which Fiat takes control of Chrysler as soon as today. "Fiat, the stronger of the two, wouldn't immediately put cash into Chrysler," the newspaper writes.

Another day, another bailout? Nah. Try: Another day, another fraud.

The New York Times leads off its business coverage today with a question that would make any free market acolyte squirm: should the incoming Obama administration nationalize some of the nation's biggest and most troubled banks, in particular CitiGroup and Bank of America? It may not have a choice, the newspaper observes.

Split Citi. That's the radical move being advocated by the company's own executives "under pressure from Washington and Wall Street," reports the Financial Times, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

Are Vikram Pandit's days numbered? The embattled Citigroup CEO is all over the business pages today. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal both say that even with worse-than-expected losses in the billions looming, he's earned enough of a vote of confidence to ride out the storm.

Just how important is India's economy becoming? Important enough to generate a financial scandal that pushes Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme off the home pages of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

The U.S. car market ended 2008 on a dire note, according to new data released yesterday. Both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times report that GM, Ford, and Toyota saw U.S. sales drop more than 30 percent last month, "capping one of the worst years for the industry in decades and solidifying the view that more turmoil lies ahead in 2009," writes the WSJ.