IKEA posts a profit and grows in most regions of the world. (Reuters)

Greece and private creditors move closer to a debt deal. (Reuters)

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) says it will enter the digital textbook business. (Reuters)

IBM (NYSE: IBM) results show solid IT demand. (Reuters)

Angry Birds’ parent pushes back the date of its IPO. (Reuters)

The EC will decide whether to approve a Google buyout of Motorola Mobility (NYSE: MMI) by February 13. (Reuters)

Eastman Kodak’s (NYSE: EK) move into bankruptcy as a means to cut costs may not yield high value for its patents as well. (WSJ)

Credit Suisse (NYSE: CS) buys old AIG (NYSE: AIG) mortgage paper from the New York Federal Reserve. (WSJ)

AT&T’s (NYSE: T) new plan to raise data costs for subscribers may prompt some to switch to competitors. (WSJ)

HSBC’s (NYSE: HBC) Chinese PMI estimate shows slow manufacturing, with a 48.8 measurement compared to 48.7 in December. (WSJ)

Floods in Thailand do not dent Intel’s (NASDAQ: INTC) earnings much. (WSJ)

American homeowners finally begin to improve their property, according to IHS Global Insight. (WSJ)

China sets more deals with U.S. allies to strengthen its supply of oil. (WSJ)

The European Aviation Safety Agency says Airbus will do more safety inspections of its A380 superjumbo. (WSJ)

General Motors (NYSE: GM) says it is the largest car company in the world, but experts disagree on how to count affiliate sales. (WSJ)

The Energy Information Administration says exports of natural gas could drive U.S. prices up by 54% in 2018. (WSJ)

Google presses its effort in display ads, which could pressure Aol (NYSE: AOL) and Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO). (WSJ)

General Electric (NYSE: GE) tries to improve its prospects, but its size and diversity may hurt that push. (WSJ)

Hedge fund investors pull more cash from the firms than they add in the last part of 2011. (WSJ)

Commerzbank, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, and Spain’s Bankia must push to raise cash to meet regulations. (WSJ)

American Express (NYSE: AXP) and Capital One (NYSE: COF) earnings show consumers returning to the use of credit. (WSJ)

Dealogic says that companies have raised $44.2 billion this year — a record for the period. (WSJ)

Chris Dodd, the head of the Motion Picture Association of America, suggests that tech and content companies meet to explore their differences. (NYT)

Ireland says its economy will be troubled again this year as its tries to meet austerity goals. (NYT)

Italy’s banks borrow 50 billion euros from the European Central Bank. (FT)

International Monetary Fund’s Largarde warns that budget cuts linked to austerity could damage growth. (Bloomberg)

Douglas A. McIntyre

At about 8:30 a.m. ET, Germany’s DAX is up 0.64% at 6,395.41 and France’s CAC 40 is up 1.44%, at 3,311.85. In London, the FTSE 100 is up 0.49%, at 5,730.38.

In Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng closed up 1.30%, at 19,942.90. The Nikkei index closed up 1.04%, at 8,639.68, and the Shanghai index closed up 1.31%, at 2,296.07.

Dow futures are up 0.34%, at 12,547.00. The Nasdaq 100 is up 0.42%, at 2,430.75 and the S&P is up 0.43%, at 1,307.80.

In the currency markets, the US dollar is weaker against the euro and the British pound and higher versus the Japanese yen. The US dollar index is down -0.299% at 80.242.

In commodities, WTI and Brent crude are higher this morning, with WTI up 1.21% at $101.81/barrel and Brent up 0.78% at $111.52/barrel. Gold is up 0.13% this morning, at $1,662.00/ounce.

Paul Ausick

Greece and its private lenders work toward a last-hour compromise on a debt exchange. (Reuters)

BP (NYSE: BP) likely to set a $20 billion to $25 billion deal to settle criminal and civil changes from the U.S. government. (Reuters)

EBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) expresses concerns about European business as it announces earnings. (Reuters)

Online demonstrations against an internet anti-piracy bill prompt some members of Congress to drop their support for the legislation. (Reuters)

Sony Ericsson posts an unexpected Q4 loss ahead of its ownership transfer to Sony (NYSE: SNE). (Reuters)

AT&T (NYSE: T) raises the price of data rates that it charges its wireless subscribers. (Reuters)

The new S&P CEO defends decisions to downgrade the U.S. and EU nations. (WSJ)

The White House rejects plans to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline. (WSJ)

General Motors (NYSE: GM) plans to increase Volt sales. (WSJ)

BHP Billiton (NYSE: BHP) says it expects record iron ore output this year. (WSJ)

California Governor Brown pushes for temporary tax increases to salvage the state’s finances. (WSJ)

The International Monetary Fund will try to raise several hundred billion dollars to support weak economies. (WSJ)

Italy sets new plans to allow its private businesses be more competitive. (WSJ)

Younger Chinese move much of their media consumption from TV to the internet. (WSJ)

Airbus raises the price of its A320neo. (WSJ)

Facebook adds a number of applications to keep users online for longer. (WSJ)

The SEC approves a merger between NYSE Euronext (NYSE: NYX) and Deutsche Boerse. (WSJ)

China was a net seller of Treasuries in November. (WSJ)

The International Energy Agency cuts its oil demand outlook. (WSJ)

Hedge funds may sue Greece in the European Court of Human Rights if the nation does not honor bond obligations. (NYT)

A warm winter hurts retailers that sell goods for cold weather. (NYT)

Natural gas prices hit a decade low. (FT)

Commerzbank and Banca MPS may be low on funds and face partial takeovers by their respective governments. (FT)

PayPal’s numbers help eBay’s earnings. (FT)

UK consumer confidence falls. (Bloomberg)

Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) and Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) each expect markets to improve. (Bloomberg)

Douglas A. McIntyre

Kodak has desperately begun several patent suits, the most recent of which was against Samsung. The firm announced that:

[I]t and its U.S. subsidiaries filed voluntary petitions for chapter 11 business reorganization in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

The business reorganization is intended to bolster liquidity in the U.S. and abroad, monetize non-strategic intellectual property, fairly resolve legacy liabilities, and enable the Company to focus on its most valuable business lines. The Company has made pioneering investments in digital and materials deposition technologies in recent years, generating approximately 75% of its revenue from digital businesses in 2011.

Kodak has obtained a fully-committed, $950 million debtor-in-possession credit facility with an 18-month maturity from Citigroup to enhance liquidity and working capital. The credit facility is subject to Court approval and other conditions precedent. The Company believes that it has sufficient liquidity to operate its business during chapter 11, and to continue the flow of goods and services to its customers in the ordinary course.

Kodak expects to pay employee wages and benefits and continue customer programs. Subsidiaries outside of the U.S. are not subject to proceedings and will honor all obligations to suppliers, whenever incurred. Kodak and its U.S. subsidiaries will honor all post-petition obligations to suppliers in the ordinary course.

Kodak has traded below $1 for some time, with occasional runs up as investors believed it had made decisions that would allow the company to continue as a going concern. Those equity investors have now been wiped out.

Douglas A. McIntyre

24/7 Wall St.’s review of the IFI list finds that producing the most patents does not ensure a successful business — frequently, it can mean the exact opposite. These are the top 10 biggest patent producing companies for 2011.

Most of the corporations in the top 10 are among the most worst performers across all industries. Share prices of seven of them plunged more than 40% in 2011. Five of the companies also lost money last year. Hitachi and Panasonic, both in the top 10, each lost more than $1 billion.

Read: The Most Innovative Companies in the World

Of the top 10 recipients, only three are particularly successful companies. For years, they have held the largest market share in highly profitable businesses. Korean giant Toshiba has been extremely successful in consumer electronics, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) dominates the operating system market and IBM (NYSE: IBM) is the market leader in enterprise computing. These companies have been able to rely on their constant revenue streams to support heavy investment in research and development.

Some incredibly successful tech companies are not even in the top 25. Companies like Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), which is only 39th on the list, have been extremely profitable as a result of a small number of highly successful products. Kodak (NYSE: EK) , meanwhile, is filing for bankruptcy, despite being one of the top patent recipients for years.

24/7 Wall St. reviewed top U.S. patent recipients for the past five years according to IFI’s annual reports. To illustrate how patent awards relate to company performance, we examined sales, profit and change in share price over the past five years for the top 10. We also examined how these companies compared within their industry and among the largest companies in the world based on the Forbes Global 2,000. Rankings for profit and sales are out of the largest 2,000 companies.

These are the 10 most innovative companies of the year.

The foreign minister of Germany says he still believes Greek debt will sap work. (Reuters)

China’s GDP likely will be a key measure of global financial stress, with both exports and national consumer spending at risk. (Reuters)

Slow PC sales may undermine Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) earnings. (Reuters)

Hulu to create its own programs. (Reuters)

The European Central Bank faces risks as it takes on more assets of troubled eurozone banks. (WSJ)

Strikes that may shutter Nigeria’s oil output are spreading. (WSJ)

Eastman Kodak (NYSE: EK) sues Fijifilm over patents. (WSJ)

The study “Discounted Jobs: How Retailers Sell Workers Short” finds that New York’s retail workers make $9.50 an hour. (NYT)

Inefficiencies among EU economies contribute to the growth of troubles in the region. (NYT)

The growth of ultrabooks has become critical to the PC industry. (NYT)

Venezuela will drop out of the  World Bank’s international arbitration body. (NYT)

Investors in Greek debt press to draw Germany and France into the negotiations. (FT)

Poor earnings results from U.S. banks could hurt the perception of an economic recovery. (FT)

Saudi Arabia may let more investors participate in its stock market. (FT)

Rate cuts by the ECB fail to bring down the borrowing costs of area sovereigns. (Bloomberg)

A top analyst at S&P says the pressure on sovereign paper in Europe may get worse. (Bloomberg)

A key analyst drops its estimate of Ireland’s 2012 GDP growth to 0.4% from 1.7% and says the nation will miss targets for the next two years. (Bloomberg)

India’s inflation drops to a two-year low. (Bloomberg)

The International Monetary Fund will try to increase its loan capacity to help with the situation in Europe. (Bloomberg)

The National Retail Federation expects sales to slow to a 3.4 % increase in 2012. (Bloomberg)

AAA reports gas prices are not falling in January. (various)

The China Internet Network Information Center says 513 million Chinese used a microblogging site last year. (BBC)

Douglas A. McIntyre

Kodak (NYSE:EK) has approached Citigroup (NYSE: C) for money to tide it through Chapter 11 (Bloomberg)

Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) was given a mandate by the Fed to produce a plan to curtain activity in some parts of the country if its financial state worsed last year (WSJ)

Douglas A. McIntyre

Kodak’s Consumer Digital Imaging Group probably will be closed. Or its assets may be sold to another camera company, likely without most of the employees who work in the division. The operation makes video and still cameras. It also manufactures and markets ink jet printers. None of these businesses has much of a future as the hardware of each becomes little better than a commodity. Revenue for the group fell from $644 million in the third quarter of the previous year to $408 million in the same period of 2011. It lost $90 million in Q3 2011.

Kodak’s Film, Photofinishing and Entertainment Group makes disposable cameras, entertainment and imaging products and consumer film. Most of these products are no longer profitable, or they are made and sold for less by Kodak’s competitors in the sector. And there are many such competitors. Revenue for the group dropped from $433 million in the third quarter of the previous year to $389 million in the same period last year. The group made $15 million, but that number continues to decline.

The focus of the news about Kodak is that it has a number of patents, the value of which is supposed to save the company. Less is said about businesses owned by the Kodak that probably will disappear.

Kodak still has nearly 19,000 workers. When the company buckles under the weight of its debt and losses, the dismantling of Kodak may be shuffled out of the headlines. But for the people who work for the dying firm, the future of their division will matter. The fate of the patents will not.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Layoffs have surged recently. There is no telling why they happened all at about the same time. Drug giant Novartis (NYSE: NVS) said it will cut nearly 2,000 jobs. Food Lion will shut 113 stores, which will cause several thousand layoffs. RBS (NYSE: RBS) just fired 3,500 people. And on the sidelines sit Sears (NASDAQ: SHLD), Eastman Kodak (NYSE: EK), Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) and AMR, the parent of American Airlines. Media reports of the past day or so say that each of these likely will cut large numbers of people because of debt or profit considerations. It has been a long time since so many companies, well-known but in trouble, have fired legions of workers.

Bank of America Disclosures

The list of what Bank of America conveniently forgets to tell stockholders has grown again. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Federal Reserve may force the bank to drop out of some businesses and let go of operations in regions around the country. A newspaper had to break the story. Bank of America management must not have considered it necessary to disclose. That lack of disclosure can be added to when the financial firm failed to say how deep its trouble was just ahead of an investment of $5 billion by Warren Buffett on terms not favorable to the bank, or the sales of its interest in China Construction Bank. It also has been left to the press to dig into Bank of America’s holdings of sovereign debt issued by weak nations in the eurozone. Suits against the firm over its mortgage practices and sales of mortgage securities also came out in the press or were issued in announcements by the government agencies planning to take action against the bank.

Goldman Sachs’ Forecast

Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) has joined a chorus of experts suggesting the price of oil may soar in 2012. The most obvious reason for the increase is trouble with Iran and unrest in Nigeria. Goldman has added one more reason to the list. OPEC may be unable to make up for a shortfall in supply. The markets have counted on members of the cartel, particularly Saudi Arabia, to temporarily increase production if necessary. Goldman points out, however, that, “With Saudi producing close to 10 million barrels a day, OPEC will be operating with a very thin layer of spare capacity, making the oil market much more vulnerable to additional disruptions, with supplies from Nigeria being a particular concern.”

iPhone Riots in China

The demand for the Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone 4S in China nearly touched off riots at its flagship store there. Other Apple stores in the country apparently sold out of the smartphone quickly. After a crowd at the flagship location threw eggs and other debris, police gathered to disburse the crowd. Apple’s solution was simple. In China, it will sell the iPhone 4S only online for now. Many times, Apple has had too few units of new products, and that has irked potential customers. The violent outbreak, however, is a first.

Douglas A. McIntyre

President Obama to ask for a $1.2 trillion increase in the national debt ceiling. (Reuters)

China’s foreign currency reserves drop to $3.18 trillion, a sign that exports have slowed enough to change monetary policy. (Reuters)

Novartis (NYSE: NVS) will cut 2,000 jobs in the U.S. (Reuters)

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) stops iPhone sales in China when crowds become unruly. (Reuters)

Several buyers, including Delta (NYSE: DAL) and US Air (NYSE: LCC), may approach American Airlines parent AMR about a buyout. (Reuters)

Yields fall at Italy and Spain debt sales. (Reuters)

Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) may have retained Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) to look at strategic alternatives. (Reuters)

The Fed may force Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) to leave a number of businesses and some areas of the country. (WSJ)

Goldman Sachs approaches federal officials about buying the troubled bond portfolio of AIG (NYSE: AIG). (WSJ)

A strategic review of PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP) by its board likely will not prompt the firing of its CEO, Indra Nooyi. (WSJ)

China sets new rules to make it easier for foreign investors to put capital into the country. (WSJ)

A Wynn Resorts (NASDAQ: WYNN) shareholder files suit about a possible donation the company made to a university in Macau. (WSJ)

Low retail sales raise concerns about the pace of the recovery. (WSJ)

An agency of the U.S. government pressures AMR to keep its pension plans intact. (WSJ)

Eurozone factory output drops in November, based on year-over-year numbers. (WSJ)

The government probes potentially illegal financial activities at Diamond Foods (NASDAQ: DMND). (WSJ)

Several lenders to Sears Holdings’ (NASDAQ: SHLD) suppliers want faster payments to those suppliers. (WSJ)

BMW and Mercedes increase production in the U.S. (WSJ)

Peugeot would like to form a broad alliance with another car company. (WSJ)

International bond investors largely believe a deal on Greek debt will be done, but not on the terms Greece expects. (WSJ)

China may invest some of its foreign reserves in stocks to get better returns. (WSJ)

Corn prices fall on new, higher estimates of U.S. production. (WSJ)

Members of the 2006 Fed did not anticipate the housing collapse. (NYT)

CVS Caremark (NYSE: CVS) pays $5 million for charging too much for some drugs. (NYT)

Target (NYSE: TGT) will set up small Apple stores inside its retail locations. (NYT)

The creditworthiness of U.S. companies fell over the past 30 years, according to S&P. (FT)

Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and LG discuss a new TV project. (Bloomberg)

Eastman Kodak (NYSE: EK) approaches Citigroup (NYSE: C) for capital it might use as part of a bankruptcy. (Bloomberg)

Douglas A. McIntyre