Stocks to watch for Monday, May 12, 2008:
 

  • American International Group's (AIG) profitable airplane-leasing company, International Lease Finance Corp., may seek to split into its own company amid its parent company's financial struggles. Last week, AIG reported a quarterly loss of $7.8 billion despite a solid report from ILFC, with operating income of up 41% to $272 million.
  • Cablevision (CVC) is close to a deal to purchase Tribune's (TXA) Newsday newspaper for $650 million. News Corp (NWS) withdrew its $580 million bid this weekend. An official announcement could come as early as today, reported Reuters.
  • HSBC (HBC) took a $3.2 billion write-down in its 1Q, yet still reported a profit. The actual earnings were not released yet by the bank. Alex Potter, analyst at Collins Stewart, said the report from Europe's largest bank was not a surprise as even in the US, performance was well above worst fears.
  • Morgan Stanley (MS) closed on a new infrastructure fund worth $4 billion, reported The Wall Street Journal. It's original target for the fund was $2.5 billion. The company tapped pension funds, wealthy individuals, and more than 100 of its own employees for seed money in the new private-equity venture. The fund, Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners, has already made investments in a downtown public parking system in Chicago, an airport in Venice and the Port of Montreal in Canada.
  • Research in Motion (RIMM) released the latest version of its BlackBerry, dubbed the BlackBerry Bold. It runs on high speed 3G wireless networks and has added processing power, allowing it to run more sophisticated business software, reported The Wall Street Journal. As the company continues to compete with Apple's (AAPL) iPhone, it's now allowing users to more easily download music, browse the Internet and watch videos.


Market Recap
 

  • Asian trading closed with the Nikkei +0.64%, Sensex +0.74%, Taiwan +0.43% and Shanghai +0.37%.
  • A quick check of Europe finds the CAC +0.67%, DAX +0.47%, FTSE +0.50% and Stockholm -0.06%.
  • Commodities are lower with crude oil -0.84 to 125.12 and gold -2.3 to 883.5 this morning.