On a GAAP basis, the company posted EPS of $0.62 in the quarter, compared with $0.92 in the same period a year ago. GAAP earnings include a noncash ceiling test impairment charge of $92 million at Loew’s wholly-owned HighMount Exploration & Production. In the year-ago quarter, a similar noncash impairment charge reduced net income by $28 million. The ceiling test assesses the carrying value of the company’s natural gas and oil properties.

Loews was hit hard in the fourth quarter by the effect of Hurricane Sandy on its CNA insurance group. In the first quarter, the firm attributed the drop in net income to “reduced parent company investment income as a result of lower performance for the trading portfolio.” In other words, picking losers. Investment income in the first quarter of 2012 totaled $76 million compared to just $7 million in the first quarter of 2013.

Loews did not offer guidance in its news release, but the consensus analysts’ estimate for the second quarter calls for EPS of $0.82. For the year, the estimates call for EPS of $3.41 on revenues of $13.29 billion.

Shares are inactive in this morning’s premarket trading, and closed down about 1.3% on Friday, at $44.44 in a 52-week range of $38.14 to $45.20. The 52-week high was set last week. The consensus target price for the shares was $46.00 before today’s report.

Excluding adjustments for debt valuation, the bank’s revenues totaled $8.9 billion and EPS totaled $0.61. The adjustment for debt valuation totaled $317 million in the quarter, compared with a $2 billion adjustment in the first quarter of 2012.

The bank’s CEO said:

Morgan Stanley demonstrated solid momentum across the Firm this quarter, consistent with the strategic objectives we laid out at the beginning of the year. … Looking forward, while the global environment continues to have moments of fragility, we believe the broad economic outlook for the next several years is stronger than in the recent past.

The bank said its Basel I Tier 1 capital ratio is about 13.9% and its Tier 1 common ratio is about 11.5%.

Morgan Stanley had no comments in its release regarding guidance. The consensus estimates for the second quarter calls for EPS of $0.51 on revenues of $8.03 billion. For the full year, EPS is expected to total $2.09 on revenues of $32.32 billion.

Shares are down about 1% in premarket trading this morning, at $21.25 in a 52-week range of $12.26 to $24.47. Thomson Reuters had a consensus analyst price target of around $23.90 before today’s results were announced.

American Express plans to raise its dividend from the current $0.20 per quarter to $0.23, beginning in the second quarter. The company expects to buy back $3.2 billion in stock over the course of 2013 and up to an additional $1 billion in the first quarter of next year.

The company’s CEO said:

Cardmember spending grew 6 percent (7 percent adjusted for foreign currency translations) and we saw a modest increase in loans outstanding. Revenue from annual cardmember fees was also up from a year ago, reflecting the value our customers see in their relationship with American Express. Credit indicators continued to be excellent. We made good headway throughout the business and continue to see very encouraging customer response to initiatives like our reloadable prepaid products and loyalty marketing initiatives that are expanding our footprint into newer segments of the market. Progress on cost control initiatives allowed us to continue to make investments to grow the business, while holding operating expenses well within our target of less than 3 percent annual growth for the next two years.

Last quarter American Express announced a restructuring of the company that included the firing of 5,400 employees and a pre-tax charge of $400 million to pay for the restructuring.

For the 2013 fiscal year, consensus estimates call for EPS of $4.76 on revenue of $33.33 billion. Today’s report from American Express did not include any guidance.

Shares are down about 1.1% at $64.13 in after-hours trading today. The 52-week range is $53.02 to $67.76. Prior to today’s release Thomson/Reuters had a consensus price target of around $67.00 on the company’s shares.

Evertec priced its IPO at $20, the high end of its proposed range of $18 to $20. The company issued more than 25 million shares, of which 10.2 million shares are being sold by Apollo Global Management LLC (NYSE: APO) and 8.8 million shares are being sold by Popular Inc. The company is selling 6.25 million shares and the underwriters have a 30-day option on an additional 3.8 million shares from Apollo.

The company expects to receive net proceeds from the IPO of about $117 million. Apollo will own 28.8% of Evertec shares and Popular will own 33.5% after the IPO, if the overallotment is exercised. Evertec plans to use the proceeds to pay down existing debt. The company is based in Puerto Rico and operates throughout Latin America in the payment transaction processing business.

Rally Software raised both the number of shares in and the share price of its IPO. The company boosted its offering from 5.75 million to 6.0 million shares and priced the IPO at $14 a share, above the expected range of $11 to $13. The company expects to receive net proceeds of $70 million from the IPO, which it plans to use for working capital and other general corporate purposes.

The company offers a cloud-based system to manage projects for the Agile software development system. The company is based in Boulder, Colo., and claimed about 169,000 paid seats in use in its S-1 filing.

Shares of Evertec are up about 7% at $21.41, and shares of Rally are up nearly 28%, at $17.89.

The bank’s CEO said:

Quarterly earnings and EPS increased at double-digit rates compared with first quarter 2012, while loans and deposits demonstrated continued growth in a challenging economic environment. In addition, expenses continued to decline as we improved efficiency across the franchise, and returns on assets and equity increased and remained among the highest in our industry. Capital levels remained strong and we were very pleased to increase our dividend to $0.25 per common share in first quarter 2013 and to receive a non-objection to our 2013 Capital Plan which will allow us to return even more capital to shareholders in the year ahead.

Wells Fargo offered no guidance in its announcement, but the consensus estimates for the second quarter of 2013 call for EPS of $0.92 on revenues of $21.38 billion. For the full year, the EPS estimate is $3.65 on revenues of $85.6 billion.

In its mortgage banking business, Wells Fargo reported non-interest income fell 2.6% year-over-year, home lending originations were down nearly 13%, and applications fell nearly 8%. Net interest margin is also down year-over-year and sequentially.

Wells Fargo has received the go-ahead to raise its dividend from $0.25 to $0.30, following the recent stress test, and the bank’s plan also included an increase in its stock buyback program. The firm’s Basel I Tier 1 common equity ratio is 10.38%, up from 10.12% in the fourth quarter of 2012 and 9.98% in the first quarter of last year.

The company’s shares are down about 1.9% in premarket trading this morning, at $36.81 in a 52-week range of $29.80 to $38.20. Thomson Reuters had a consensus analyst price target of around $39.70 before today’s report.

One-time items added $0.18 to the bank’s EPS in the first quarter. J.P. Morgan reduced its mortgage loan loss reserves and its credit card loss reserves by $1.15 billion. Absent the items, EPS came in as estimated and revenues were a little low.

The bank’s CEO said:

We are seeing positive signs that the economy is healthy and getting stronger. Housing prices continued to improve and new home purchases are also starting to come back. We also saw strong performance in our credit card portfolio, with net charge-offs remaining near historic lows, another sign that consumers are healthier and more confident. … The exception is that loan growth across the industry has been softer this quarter, although year-on-year growth remained strong. Small businesses remain cautious about the recovery and fiscal uncertainty, and are not investing their capital. However, companies’ balance sheets are much stronger than they were before the financial crisis and small businesses remain well positioned to invest in growth once they decide to.

The bank will raise its quarterly dividend from $0.30 a share to $0.38 beginning in the second quarter. J.P. Morgan repurchased $2.6 billion in stock during the first quarter, and the board has authorized purchases up to an additional $6 billion through the first quarter of next year.

J.P. Morgan increased its Basel I Tier 1 capital ratio to 10.2% in the fourth quarter, up from 9.8% a year ago. The bank estimates that its Basel III Tier 1 common ratio is about 8.9%, up from 8.7% in the fourth quarter of 2012.

The bank did not offer guidance in its press release, but the consensus estimates call for second-quarter EPS of $1.38 on revenues of $25.28 billion. The EPS estimate for the 2013 fiscal year is now $5.49.

Shares are trading about 0.7% lower in the premarket this morning, at $48.95. The current 52-week range is $30.83 to $51.00. Thomson Reuters had a consensus analyst price target of around $54.70 before today’s results were announced.

Safeway currently owns about 96% of Blackhawk and “will continue to hold shares of Class B common stock representing a significant majority of the combined voting power” of Blackhawk’s outstanding shares after the offering. The lead underwriters for the offering are Goldman Sachs, BofA/Merrill Lynch, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank Securities.

According to the filing, Blackhawk currently counts among its gift-card customers such high-profile companies as Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), Lowe’s Companies Inc. (NYSE: LOW), Macy’s Inc. (NYSE: M), Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) and Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iTunes. The company also serves the three large payment networks: American Express Co. (NYSE: AXP), Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) and Mastercard Inc. (NYSE: MA). Blackhawk also issues reloadable cards for Green Dot Corp. (NYSE: GDOT) among others, including its own PayPower brand.

Blackhawk’s filing indicates that the company will receive none of the net proceeds from the offering. Class A shares will have one vote and Class B shares will have 10 votes on all matters that are put to a shareholder vote.

According to the filing, Blackhawk posted net income of $48.165 million in 2012 on operating revenues of $959.07 million, up from $362 million in revenues and $22.7 million in operating profits in 2001, the year the company was founded.

Several banks were very close to meeting all of our financial, historic and transformative criteria, and they may be eligible for the list of safest banks in 2014, or even after the stress tests and after decisions have been formalized over returning capital to shareholders. Some of the data may seem investor oriented, but the reality is that institutional depositors, creditors and trading partners generally evaluate peers with many of the same metrics. The global economic recovery has lost some steam at the same time that the stock market has recovered. The public needs to know which of the larger banks are safe, regardless whether the economy stabilizes or worsens again.

The criteria to be among the safest banks has to be very strict by nature. It also has to apply to the larger institutions, which are either money-center banks or have multiple-state geographies. To make the list, a bank either had to have a minimum of 100 branches or it had to have retail branches in multiple states as the base level for relevance and importance. We used banks with a minimum market capitalization of $3 billion and a minimum asset base of $20 billion. These safest banks had to have the bulk of their image tied to retail and commercial banking operations with many branch offices (probably eliminate, we said above). This eliminated the great fiduciary banks such as State Street Corp. (NYSE: STT) and Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (NYSE: BK), even though they certainly would be considered among the safest banks. It also eliminated the bank holding companies with no retail banking operations, such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS).

24/7 Wall St. took a “Made in America” approach as well, and we screened out U.S. banking outfits that are actually subsidiaries of foreign banks. We also screened out the banks that were still in the process of making large, game-changing or transformative acquisitions, which are too difficult to evaluate in order to avoid absorbing any hidden or unknown risks.

With credit ratings becoming a risk again after a U.K. sovereign downgrade, and on the heels of the fiscal cliff and spending sequestration, all these banks also had to be considered investment grade by the major credit ratings agencies. A minimum hurdle of a 7.0% return on equity had to be seen, and we included the return on assets in this analysis as well. These safest banks had to have a minimum divided yield of 2.0% for their common stockholders, as proof that management believes that it can continue returning capital to shareholders through good and bad times, while still maintaining normal operations.

We screened out the nondiversified banks to avoid too many fluctuations throughout the business cycles. For an investment angle, we also gave preference to the banks where Wall St. analysts have a consensus price target above the current share price, indicating that some underlying value potentially remains. If a bank’s common stock was less than $10.00 per share, it had to have its metrics well above average among the largest banks.

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While Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) was the best performing of the 30 Dow Jones Industrial Average stocks in 2012, it and the money-center banking giant Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) actually do not qualify to be in the safest banks in America, even though the reality is that these banks are almost certain to survive another recession. The Federal Reserve deems them to still be problem banks, and they have so far not been freed up to raise their dividends or to increase share buybacks. That may change ahead, and the reality is that these banks are believed to be strong enough to weather most negative scenarios under the impending stress tests.

Finally, we eliminated banks that we did not feel would survive another recession. Consumers have to keep their money somewhere other than under their mattresses. Having an extremely safe bank to protect your hard-earned cash, nest-eggs and safety deposit boxes in hard times is much more important than how high of a rate depositors can get on certificates of deposit and in their checking and savings accounts. As far as quality is concerned, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) has large stakes in three of the seven safest banks.

In mid-2012, banking regulators proposed to incorporate Basel III capital changes for substantially all U.S. banking organizations. Our list of safest banks shows the Tier-1 ratio today as well as the company’s projected Tier-1 ratio under the proposed rules. This also helps to eliminate any problems over safety and vulnerability ahead. If Basel III is finally adopted as proposed, the threshold for the Tier 1 common equity ratio will be 7%, consisting of a minimum level plus a capital conservation buffer.

Based on the analysis, we anticipate that future lists of the safest banks in America may include 10 or even 12 banks, rather than seven, because many banks only missed one criteria yet exceeded other hurdles handily. We still are not evaluating the community or single-region banks due to size or single geography risks. That being said, many of those community banks have better ratios than any of the larger safest banks in America.

This is the 24/7 Wall St. list of the seven safest banks in America for 2013 to deposit money into, ranked in order of safety, size by assets, and reach.  Our rank is based on financial stability, size by assets, and by reach.

The company is selling 5.22 million shares, and certain shareholders are selling an additional 1.1 million shares. The underwriters have an option on an additional 948,750 shares.

Xoom anticipates net proceeds of $74.7 million ($88.8 million if the underwriters exercise their option), and the company said it will use the proceeds for working capital and general corporate purposes. Xoom may also use some of the proceeds to acquire “complementary businesses, products or technologies,” but has not made specific commitments yet.

Xoom’s chief competitor is the venerable Western Union Co. (NYSE: WU), and the new company makes its money primarily from transaction fees for its international money transfers. Unlike other international transfer firms, Xoom originates all its transactions online and its users can fund the transfer with a U.S.-based bank account, credit card or debit card. The company currently can make transfers between the United States and 30 countries.

As of 10:00 a.m. ET, no shares had yet been traded.

Moody’s had initiated its review in September following McGraw-Hill’s announcement that it was selling its education division to Apollo Global Management LLC (NYSE: APO) for $2.5 billion.

But wait, there’s more. It is not just that Moody’s thinks that the sale of McGraw-Hill’s education division is a bad idea:

[McGraw-Hill also faces] heightened litigation risks in light of the recent civil lawsuits filed against McGraw-Hill and its subsidiary Standard & Poor’s Financial Services LLC (S&P) by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and various state attorneys general.

S&P’s defense against the DOJ charges is essentially, “Everybody was doing it.” That would include Moody’s of course. So far the Justice Department has taken no action against Moody’s or Fitch, but if, as S&P claims, everyone was rating mortgage-backed securities stuffed with subprime loans as golden, then it would seem that the DOJ would have figured that out already, and it is just a matter of time before enforcement actions are leveled against the other agencies.

And if everyone wasn’t doing it, as S&P claims, well that would be novel, to say the least.

McGraw-Hill’s shares are down about 0.3% in premarket trading this morning, at $44.86 in a 52-week range of $42.02 to $58.62.