EU concerns push the euro to close to a two-year low. (Reuters)

Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) will invest $40 billion into alternative energy in the next decade. (Reuters)

TV networks battle with Dish Network (NASDAQ: DISH) over a DVR that can skip ads. (Reuters)

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) CEO Tim Cook gives up $75 million in dividends on his stock holdings. (Reuters)

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-B) may buy more newspapers. (Reuters)

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) loan shares to short sellers who want to hedge Facebook’s stock. (WSJ)

U.S. bank lending falls in the first quarter, a possible sign of economic slowing. (WSJ)

Toyota (NYSE: TM) will push further into emerging markets. (WSJ)

Comcast’s (NASDAQ: CMCSA) NBCUniversal division may buyout Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) part ownership in MSNBC.com. (WSJ)

Japanese power companies invest in U.S. shale gas to help replace nuclear power. (WSJ)

Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) releases an Internet browser call Axis, which will compete with Google’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) product. (WSJ)

Spain is concerned about a run on its banks. (NYT)

Large European institutional funds begin to sell euro assets. (FT)

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti says most leaders in the region back regionwide bonds. (Bloomberg)

Douglas A. McIntyre

Some brokerage firms stop taking orders for Facebook shares. (Reuters)

Japan’s gross domestic product rises 3.5% in the first quarter, helped by consumer spending. (Reuters)

President Obama may force more harsh rules on banks after the JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM) loss. (Reuters)

Pinterest raises $100 million. (WSJ)

Some Facebook shareholders will sell $3.5 billion of stock in the initial public offering. The firms include Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS). (WSJ)

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) may launch an iPhone with a larger screen. (WSJ)

Verizon Wireless will cut unlimited data plans when customers upgrade to 4G LTE. (WSJ)

LG Electronics releases its own series of new smartphones. (WSJ)

The Mortgage Bankers Association releases data that shows the percentage of homes in foreclosure has not fallen much in the past two years. (WSJ)

The number of loans in China has fallen, which may hurt the economy. (WSJ)

Japan’s economy grows an annualized 4.1% in the quarter ended in March. (WSJ)

Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) changes the way sites are measured as it tries to cut sites that try to “game” its system. (WSJ)

Walmart (NYSE: WMT) has been tardy in opening new, small stores, which is hurting it in competition with Target (NYSE: TGT) and other retailers. (WSJ)

Coty will use Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) and JP Morgan for its IPO. (WSJ)

JP Morgan’s trading loss could rise 50%. (NYT)

Dish Network (NASDAQ: DISH) releases a DVR that allows viewers to skip ads. (NYT)

The Federal Reserve says it is worried about the eurozone crisis and its effect on the U.S. economy. (FT)

Shell (NYSE: RDS-A) says natural gas prices could surge by 2015 due to demand. (FT)

Douglas A. McIntyre

Here is the formal announcement from LightSquared.

LightSquared has reportedly filed for bankruptcy protection.  This will put the creditors in charge and the Bloomberg report shows that the company lists more than $1 billion in assets and liabilities each.  Creditors had previously asked backer Philp Falcone of Harbinger Capital Partners to move aside after he had invested some $3 billion or so into the company.

Bloomberg also noted that Carl Icahn cleaned up buying and selling the LightSquared debt, but Dish Network Corp. (NASDAQ: DISH) Chairman Charlie Ergen has reportedly acquired some $350 million of the debt.

The company’s website notes, “LightSquared will unleash the boundless opportunity of wireless broadband connectivity for all. We believe that it is time to transform the broadband industry to one that truly fosters innovation, creativity, and freedom of choice—with limitless and unimaginable possibilities.”  It sure sounds like LightSquared needs to change all of those verbs to past tense.

Another huge wireless venture bites the dust.  Whether or not this company has any future other than its large spectrum is a guess.

JON C. OGG

The unofficial closing bells put the DJIA down nearly 30 points to 13,008.53 (-0.23%), the NASDAQ rose less than 2 points (0.05%) to 2,957.76, and the S&P 500 rose 0.48% or less than 1 point to 1,369.58.

There were several analyst upgrades and downgrades today, including First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR) cut to ‘neutral’ at Argus; Pepsico Inc. (NYSE: PEP) raised to ‘overweight’ at Morgan Stanley; Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) cut to ‘market perform’ at Wells Fargo; Illumina Inc. (NASDAQ: ILMN) raised to ‘outperform’ with a price target of $55 at Credit Suisse; and Carnival Corp. (NYSE: CCL) cut to ‘neutral’ at Goldman Sachs.

Earnings reports since markets closed last night have led to some price changes as of the last half hour of trading today: Allied Nevada Gold Corp. (AMEX: ANV) is down about -10% at $25.59 after posting a new 52-week low of $25.37 earlier today; American States Water Co. (NYSE: AWR) is up 3.6% at $37.09; Breitburn Energy Partners L.P. (NASDAQ: BBEP) is down -2.4% at $17.54; Coeur d’Alene Mines Corp. (NYSE: CDE) is down -4.1% at $18.99 after posting a new 52-week low of $18.71; Dish Network Corp. (NASDAQ: DISH) is down -0.93% at $31.02; Louisiana Pacific Corp. (NYSE: LPX) is up 5.9% at $9.49; Tyson Foods Inc. (NYSE: TSN) is up 3.4% at $18.65; and HollyFrontier Corp. (NYSE: HFC) is down -2.4% at $28.82 (more coverage here).

On Tuesday we are scheduled to get earnings from Charter Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: CHTR), Demand Media Inc. (NYSE: DMD), Hecla Mining Co. (NYSE: HL), OfficeMax Inc. (NYSE: OMX), Tenet Healthcare Corp. (NYSE: THC), The Wendy’s Co. (NYSE: WEN), and Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS).

Other standouts from today include the following stocks:

Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: VRTX) is up about 55% at $58.05. The company’s cystic fibrosis drug study showed significant positive results. More coverage here.

Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. (NASDAQ: CTSH) is down more than -XX% at $XX. The IT-outsourcing firm showed good results, but guidance was weak. More coverage here.

BroadSoft Inc. (NASDAQ: BSFT) is down -17.6% at $33.68. The communications software maker posted good earnings, but followed that with soft guidance for the second quarter.

Stay tuned for Tuesday. Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker and Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher are giving speeches. We have noted the following events on the schedule (all times Eastern):

• 7:30 a.m. – NFIB Small Business optimism index
• 11:30 a.m. – 4-week bill auction
• 1:00 p.m. – 3-year note auction

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Paul Ausick

The unofficial closing bells put the DJIA down more than 168 points to 13,038.04 (-1.28%), the NASDAQ fell nearly 68 points (-2.25%) to 2,956.34, and the S&P 500 fell -1.62% or more than 22 points to 1,369.09.

There were several analyst upgrades and downgrades today, including LinkedIn Corp. (NYSE: LNKD) target price raised to $140 at Susquehanna; FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX) raised to ‘strong buy’ at Raymond James; The Allstate Corp. (NYSE: ALL) raised to ‘overweight’ at Barclays; Red Hat Inc. (NYSE: RHT) started as ‘outperform’ at BMO; and Saks Inc. (NYSE: SKS) reiterated ‘buy’ and target price of $14 at Argus.

Earnings reports since markets closed last night have led to some price changes as of the last half hour of trading today: First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR) is down -6% at $16.98 after posting a new 52-week low of $16.80 earlier today (more solar coverage here); SunPower Corp. (NASDAQ: SPWR) is down -2.1% at $5.58; AES Corp. (NYSE: AES) is down -0.7% at $12.13 (more utilities coverage here); Duke Energy Corp. (NYSE: DUK) is up 0.9% at $21.60; Estée Lauder Companies Inc. (NYSE: EL) is down -5.8% at $60.44 (more coverage here); The Washington Post Co. (NYSE: WPO) is down -5.4% at $355.88; Exelon Corp. (NYSE: EXC) is down -0.7% at $38.54; and The Madison Square Garden Co. (NASDAQ: MSG) is up 3.7% at $37.87 after posting a new 52-week high of $38.38..

On Monday we get earnings from American States Water Co. (NYSE: AWR), Breitburn Energy Partners L.P. (NASDAQ: BBEP), Dendreon Corp. (NASDAQ: DNDN), Dish Network Corp. (NASDAQ: DISH), Louisiana Pacific Corp. (NYSE: LPX), Kid Brands Inc. (NYSE: KID), Jinkosolar Holding Co. Ltd. (NYSE: JKS), and Tyson Foods Inc. (NYSE: TSN).

Other standouts from today include the following stocks:

Einstein Noah Restaurant Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: BAGL) is up 19.9% at $16.84 after posting a new 52-week high of $17.68 earlier today. The bagel maker and restaurateur reported strong earnings and said it would begin to explore strategic options.

Dolby Laboratories Inc. (NYSE: DLB) is up 17.5% at $44.22. The company reported strong earnings and has signed a deal with Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT). More coverage here.

Body Central Corp. (NASDAQ: BODY) is down -47.8% at $15.11. The young women’s apparel seller reported poor earnings and forecast more of the same until at least back-to-school season.

Stay tuned for Monday. We have noted the following events on the schedule (all times Eastern):

• 11:30 a.m. – 3- and 6- month bill auction
• 3:00 p.m. – Consumer credit report

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Have a great weekend.

Paul Ausick

Dish agreed to broadcast the channels for 15 years, but stopped after just 3 years charging Cablevision with failing to support the new channels. Cablevision sued Dish for $2.5 billion.

The Wall Street Journal reports that in a pre-trial ruling, the court found that Dish had “in bad faith” destroyed e-mail evidence. Dish appealed the ruling twice and lost twice, most recently last week. The ‘VOOM’ channels were canceled in 2009.

Normally the threat to withdraw programming is a negotiating ploy when the content provider, in this case AMC, wants more money than the cable or satellite system wants to pay. This case is slightly different, though, given the rulings against Dish. This time Dish is no doubt hoping that AMC will drop the suit in exchange for Dish’s agreement to continue carrying the AMC channels, which include AMC, Sundance, IFC, and We TV. Problem is, Dish has a lot more to lose than AMC does.

Shares of Dish are down about -3% at $31.64 in a 52-week range of $20.89-$35.64. Shares of AMC are down -2.4% at $43.48 in a 52-week range of $29.66-$46.69.

Paul Ausick

Comcast posted EPS of $0.45 versus an estimate of $0.42. Revenue grew nearly 23% year-over-year to $14.89 billion, again higher than the consensus estimate of $14.43 billion.

The cable companies are losing subscribers to Verizon Wireless, a joint venture between Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) and Vodafone plc (NASDAQ: VOD) and AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) both of which offer high speed wireline broadband service in addition to voice and mobile services. And the competition is about to get even keener.

Verizon Wireless’ $3.6 billion bid for additional wireless spectrum from SpectrumCo LLC, a joint venture of Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and privately-held Bright House Networks and Cox Communications Inc., is about to change the landscape. The additional spectrum is what the other wireless carriers and the Federal Communications Commission are examining with a fine-toothed comb, but the cross-licensing agreements that give Verizon and Comcast and Time Warner Cable the ability to sell each other’s products are, perhaps, the bigger deal.

Although the FCC has not yet ruled on Verizon’s acquisition, the companies are acting like the deal is done. A Verizon-Comcast cross-licensing deal in San Francisco adds digital TV to its standard triple-play offer. AT&T, which offers its wireline U-verse high-speed service in San Francisco, has no comparable offer.

Similar deals between Comcast and Verizon are already in place in Portland, Oregon, and Seattle and Spokane, Washington. Verizon and Time Warner have launched a similar bundle in Raleigh, North Caroline, Kansas City, and Columbus and Cincinnati, Ohio. Subscribers can bundle cable services with Verizon Wireless mobile phone service and get the same deal from either the cable company or Verizon.

Cable-like companies such as Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX), Dish Network Corp. (NASDAQ: DISH), and DirecTV (NASDAQ: DTV) will also find the going getting tougher. Netflix is at the mercy of content providers like Comcast and Time Warner, which are likely to drive Netflix’s costs higher while lowering their own. Verizon could throttle network speeds for Netflix streaming videos, and although the carrier would eventually be stopped, it might be too late for Netflix. The satellite companies, likewise, could find themselves paying more for content.

As for AT&T’s U-verse and Verizon’s FiOS, neither is as valuable nor has as well-defined a growth path as wireless services. Comcast’s Xfinity broadband service will disappear eventually and be subsumed by the Verizon wireless network.

People want mobility and that means wireless services. At first, the deals between Comcast and Verizon and Time Warner and Verizon will be appealing because the companies will be offering free or low-priced smartphones as well as the convenience of a single provider for all of a customer’s communications needs. But as smaller competitors like MetroPCS Communications Inc. (NYSE: PCS), Leap Wireless International Inc. (NASDAQ: LEAP), and even T-Mobile USA, the US arm of Deutsche Telekom AG (OTC: DTEGY) fall by the wayside, large markets will have at most two choices, Verizon or AT&T, and small markets will not get even that.

The new cross-licensing services launched too late to have any impact on first quarter results, but the deals should make some kind of showing on second quarter results. The smart money says that the deals will be winners.

Comcast’s shares are down -2.7% this morning at $29.76 in a 52-week range of $19.19-$30.88.

For those interested in the Verizon-SpectrumCo deal, the FCC web site has all the relevant documents under Docket Number WT 12-4. To date 539 comments have been filed and thousands of pages of documents.

Paul Ausick

Read The Least Powerful CEOs in America

Read The Most Powerful CEOs in America

Most of the companies with a controlling shareholder are ones in which the founder or founding family had all of the ownership before the company became public. In some cases these founders kept all voting shares for themselves at the time of the initial public offering. In other cases, they kept enough to still have much larger stakes than any other holders. The best example of the evolution from owning all of a company to owning voting control is Walmart (NYSE: WMT). Sam Walton founded the company. He kept the controlling block of shares when it went public. His family retained control after his death and still does.

The fact that a CEO can be dismissed for reasons other than performance does not appear to affect how well these chief executives do. Current Walmart CEO Michael Duke may be the worst chief executive in the retailer’s history, but so far he retains the support of the founder’s family.  The Mexico bribery scandal that Walmart faces will cost shareholders money, probably in the form of large legal fees and perhaps government fines. Walmart’s stock has fallen recently due to investor concerns. Duke has been a poor steward. At the other end of the spectrum is Fabrizio Freda, who runs Estee Lauder (NYSE: EL). The company set a record for both profits and revenue last year. Shares are up 100% in just two years. Still, nothing would keep the Lauder family from dismissing Freda — should they choose to — despite those successes.

24/7 Wall St. reviewed the corporate structure, governance and voting rights of the 500 largest companies by market cap. Based on a review of company proxies, we identified those companies in which someone other than the CEO had voting control of the company. We then limited the universe to those companies with market cap in excess of $5 billion.

These are 24/7 Wall St.’s least powerful CEOs in America.

The cable box is now three decades old. Cable was first build for rural areas that could not get broadcast signals. It quickly moved to cities as pay-TV channels like HBO were created. The cable box has not been pushed out of most homes, despite the efforts of companies like Tivo (NASDAQ: TIVO), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and telecom firms with fiber to the home. These fiber products have been championed by the likes of AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ), which have had a place in American homes where they have provided telephone service for years. Even that presence has not helped them much.

The only industry that can fairly claim it has dislodged cable in many cases is satellite TV. Dish Network (NASDAQ: DISH) and DirecTV (NASDAQ: DTV) each have millions of subscribers. But satellite TV firms were early in the video-to-home business, offering service not long after cable companies did.

The attraction of the home living room has been a magnet to the world’s largest tech companies for years, because it is a multibillion-dollar business. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) tried to establish its own home entertainment system, which was Windows based. The project, begun in the early 2000s, was still-born. Microsoft found that consumers did not view TVs as they did PCs. And it had the same problem competing with the nearly universal adoption of cable and satellite. One more service made the living room too crowded.

Video service providers like Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) have had success in the living room, but Netflix does not replace the cable box. It complements it. Netflix may compete with cable VOD, but its does so over broadband and is not the primary signal to the television set. Some cable companies fear that Netflix will create a de facto cable system. That would be difficult. Netfilx would have to set relationships with content providers as disparate as local TV stations and MTV. There is a tiny chance Netflix could do that, but the process would take years. Cable TV operators established those relationships years ago.

Intel, which may create a new set-top service, will be unable to convince consumers that it should be the third, fourth or fifth entertainment and information product in the living room.

Douglas A. McIntyre

AIG (NYSE: AIG) makes a large profit on portfolio gains. (Reuters)

Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) legal fight with Proview International moves to the U.S. courts. (Reuters)

The U.S. Postal Service plans to cut 35,000 jobs. (Reuters)

Sears Holdings (NASDAQ: SHLD) will sell assets to improve its balance sheet, but worries about its core retail business have not changed. (Reuters)

Federal prosecutors are prepared to file charges against BP (NYSE: BP) for many errors that caused the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. (WSJ)

Apollo Global Management (NYSE: APO) is close to a deal to buy El Paso’s (NYSE: EP) oil and exploration business for $7 billion. (WSJ)

Dish Network (NYSE: DISH) will enter the mobile communications business. (WSJ)

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says most Republican presidential candidates have suggested programs that would add to the federal debt. (WSJ)

China objects to a European investigation of its steel trade practice, which raises concerns that financial aid to the region may involve concessions on China exports to the region. (WSJ)

Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) to cut more than 4,000 jobs. (WSJ)

T-Mobile to spend $4 billion to upgrade its network to faster wireless service. (WSJ)

Quarterly results from EU-based banks show how badly the debt crisis has hurt them financially. (WSJ)

Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) will stop selling loans to Fannie Mae based on a disagreement about how delinquent mortgages should be handled. (WSJ)

European creditor nations set a large number of tax and spending conditions for Greece to receive aid. (FT)

The World Bank and Chinese economists say the nation must change currency policies and open its markets or risk a sharp slowdown. (FT)

Spain asks the EU to ease its deficit targets. (FT)

The U.S. will plant more crops this year, which should ease global price increases. (FT)

Oil prices are set to have their longest string of increases since 2008. (Bloomberg)

European officials to ask other large nations to put more money into the International Monetary Fund. (Bloomberg)

Douglas A. McIntyre