S&P’s threat of a downgrade of eurozone nations puts huge pressure on the region’s leaders. (Reuters)

An independent panel that reviewed the financial activity of Olympus suggests legal action be taken. (Reuters)

An MIT report says the U.S. power grid is vulnerable to cyber attacks. (Reuters)

BP (NYSE: BP) says high oil prices could hurt global growth. (Reuters)

Samsung announces a new flash memory chip operation in China to cost as much as $4 billion. (Reuters)

John Corzine ignored warnings about his firm’s risky trades, some of which were given to his board by management. (WSJ)

Merkel and Sarkozy will support changes in the euro area treaty that would hold nations more closely to their budgets. (WSJ)

Ford (NYSE: F) begins to search for a CEO as Alan Mulally plans to leave within two years. (WSJ)

AMR (NYSE: AMR) likely will make deep expense cuts so it can exit Chapter 11. (WSJ)

Kraft Foods (NYSE: KFT) announces who will manage the two divisions into which the company will be broken. (WSJ)

Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) will try to raise $300 million. (WSJ)

California Governor Jerry Brown will try to get a tax on high-income residents to cover the costs of education. (WSJ)

Alpha Natural Resources (NYSE: ANR) will pay fines to cover a mining disaster that happened before it owned the operator of the mine involved — Massey. (WSJ)

BP says Halliburton (NYSE: HAL) destroyed evidence about the Deepwater Horizon disaster. (WSJ)

A leading Greek politician says his country’s recession will last through 2013. (WSJ)

Viacom (NYSE: VIA) expects strong ad growth in the near term. (WSJ)

ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) says that two agencies approved its drilling in the Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve. (WSJ)

Eastman Kodak (NYSE: EK) changes some of its advisers as it tries to avoid Chapter 11. (WSJ)

Norway’s sovereign-wealth fund pushes to replace board members at some U.S. firms it owns. (WSJ)

Debate over whether Walmart (NYSE: WMT) will hurt local merchants in India has caused deep rifts in a government that may let large retailers own stores in the country. (NYT)

An antitrust hearing will check issues with the Express Scripts (NASDAQ: ESRX) and Medco Health Solutions (NYSE: MHS) merger. (NYT)

Edgar M. Bronfman Jr. departs as chairman of Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG). (NYT)

Dubai may refinance $10 billion in state debt. (FT)

Douglas A. McIntyre

EU officials not expecting China to invest in the region’s bailout, despite reports to the contrary. (Reuters)

Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) to keep its PC unit. (Reuters)

MF Global (NYSE: MF) loses clients because of reports of its poor performance. (Reuters)

Samsung smartphone sales move ahead of Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) and the Korean company says it expects a strong Q4. Samsung had 23.8% of the global smartphone market in the third quarter, 9 points higher than Apple. (Reuters)

Water use is growing faster than the world’s population, according to the World Resources Institute. (Reuters)

Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) and potential bidders are at odds over a complex nondisclosure agreement. (Reuters)

Baidu’s (NASDAQ: BIDU) earnings rise sharply as search revenue in China climbs. The local search engine now has 80% of the market. (Reuters)

Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) sets up a surveillance system in India to help the government track BlackBerry use. (WSJ)

JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) will not charge customers who use their debit cards for purchases. (WSJ)

Ahead of IPOs, the heads of Groupon and Zynga set up share systems that will give them more voting rights. (WSJ)

Brocade (NASDAQ: BRCD) may try to find a buyer. (WSJ)

Poor results put Avon’s (NYSE: AVP) CEO Andrea Jung under pressure. (WSJ)

The NYSE and Nasdaq increase their competition for IPO listings. (WSJ)

Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG) is close to a deal to buy EMI. (WSJ)

Chrysler posts a $212 million quarterly profit. (WSJ)

A study by the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire shows relocations in the U.S. have slowed. (NYT)

Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) loses both voice and cable subscribers. (FT)

France may have to make more budget cuts to keep its AAA rating. (Bloomberg)

Douglas A. McIntyre

AIG (NYSE: AIG) may sell part of its equity in AIA Group (WSJ)

Warner Music (NYSE: WMG) is close to a buyout of EMI (WSJ)

Douglas A. McIntyre

Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) was savaged by the press as information from its CEO about its weak quarterly numbers and future prospects were leaked to the press.

The Flame Index started as a research tool in 2008 at the NY Innovation Design Lab (nyidlab). It was used as a general metric to evaluate companies and their risk in the media. Publicly traded Fortune 500 companies are used as a measure to calculate an overall market of negative news and the companies are ranked within that market.

Data and ranking provided by the Flame Index.

H&R Block (NYSE: HRB) was punished because of concerns about it former subprime portfolio. Systemax fired one of its division executives who was involved in a scandal. Quest Diagnostics paid $211 million to settle a suit which claimed it over-billed customers.

The Flame Index started as a research tool in 2008 at the NY Innovation Design Lab (nyidlab). It was used as a general metric to evaluate companies and their risk in the media. Publicly traded Fortune 500 companies are used as a measure to calculate an overall market of negative news and the companies are ranked within that market.

Data and ranking provided by the Flame Index.

The move will effectively mark the end of the public pure-play music studios, which have been under attack from independent labels started by musicians and under fire from the internet as artists have gone direct to consumers or through third-party distribution systems online.  How many CD stores have you seen lately?

That this was a $25 and higher stock back in 2006 effectively has no merit today.  That was then, and the world has changed.

As a reminder, until a full press release confirms the merger with both sides accepting terms we will not consider this a done deal.

JON C. OGG

Glencore’s IPO was sold out in the first day (Reuters)

Warner Music (NYSE: WMG) is about to be sold (Reuters)

Douglas A. McIntyre

Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Facebook have considered a purchase of Skype. (Reuters)

The Federal Reserve said it was prepared to blunt inflation but said it was too early for the effort. (Reuters)

Easter sales helped April retail figures. (Reuters)

Stocks continued to drop on concerns about the US economy. (Reuters)

Brent crude remained above $121 on the value of the dollar. (Reuters)

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) changed software in its mobile devices to disable part of its tracker ability. (Reuters)

Shares in China social network RenRen soared after its IPO. (Reuters)

Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG) may be sold within days. (Reuters)

Applied Materials will buy Varian Semi. (Reuters)

An investigation into bribes allegedly made by Avon (NYSE: AVP) grew. (WSJ)

A drop in concerns about defaults of muni bonds helped bring down interest rates. (WSJ)

Debate about a restructure of Greek debt has flamed disagreements amount EU members. (WSJ)

Nintendo cut the prices of its Wii. (WSJ)

Glencore’s top five executive will own nearly $25 billion of the firm’s shares.(WSJ)

The US Commerce Department said China has renewed its resistance to the presence of foreign firms. (WSJ)

Profits moved higher at Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) as it moved beyond the sale of discs. (WSJ)

Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) showed new chips that it said were the biggest advance in the industry in 50 years. (WSJ)

RalCorp turned down an offer from ConAgra. (WSJ)

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) will release new romance novels to help it compete with traditional publishers. (WSJ)

Silver plunged below $40. (WSJ)

A plan to extend the day the debt ceiling is hit could damage US government agencies and the economy. (NYT)

Interest rates on Portugal’s debt rose even after it agreed to an EU and IMF bailou.t (NYT)

Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) will triple its number of mortgage aid centers. (NYT)

Dunkin’ Brands may have an IPO. (FT)

As the number of plants put in China by overseas companies slows, the US may become the world’s largest manufacturer again. (FT)

Online shopping rose sharply due to high US fuel prices. (FT)

The head of the ECB may show how quickly he is ready to raise rates to fight inflation. (Bloomberg)

Several large central banks added substantially to the gold reserves. (Bloomberg)

Douglas A. McIntyre

The FTC has readied a complete investigation into Google’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) dominance in search. (Bloomberg)

A sale of Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG) could happen as early as this week (Reuters)

Facebook’s revenue has grown faster than expected, which may accelerate an IPO (WSJ)

Toyota (NYSE: TM) will report a first half loss (Bloomberg)

Douglas A. McIntyre

The US helped cut the amount of oil China imported from Iran to punish the ruling government in the Middle East nation. (Reuters)

Sony (NYSE: SNE) faces an uphill fight to get back trust from users of the PlayStation network. (Reuters)

The market for handsets in the first quarter was pulled higher by smartphone sales. (Reuters)

Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG) may be sold for $3 billion soon. (Reuters)

The Danisco board recommended that company accept a $6.64 billion buyout from DuPont. (NYSE: DD) (Reuters)

Chrysler gave details of its refinance plans. (Reuters)

The rapid growth of Facebook makes an IPO in 2012 more likely. (WSJ)

The prices of many commodities which spiked up last year have fallen sharply. (WSJ)

Warren Buffett used the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting to control damage from the David Sokol inside trading scandal. (WSJ)

Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) said location data was very valuable to the search company’s future according to released e-mails. (WSJ)

An improvement in the financial position of banks has caused more dividend increases. (WSJ)

The addition of new jobs has not followed a sharp increase in corporate profits. (WSJ)

Samsung profits fell 30%. (WSJ)

A bipartisan group of six senators is close to a budget recommendation to take to Congress. (WSJ)

The new head of Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) will make the company more efficient as its reliance on Lipitor falls. (WSJ)

Time Warner’s (NYSE: TWC) Time Inc. has reached a deal with Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) to allow print subscribers to access apps for free. (WSJ)

New data shows that as base compensation of workers rises, more focus will be put on the control of benefits. (WSJ)

A slowing growth of the US economy has pushed investors into Treasuries although rates should be pressured up by the financing of the deficit. (WSJ)

Sugar prices have been moving higher because of import limits and less US production. (WSJ)

A large number of Japanese factories have moved back into production. (WSJ)

The old manufacturing states like Michigan have been at the lead in a manufacturing rebound. (FT)

An EU investigation of credit default swaps could hurt bank margins. (Bloomberg)

The Nasdaq has increased scrutiny of reverse mergers as the SEC investigates the practice. (Bloomberg)

Douglas A. McIntyre