Financial News Fri Apr 13th 2012 – North Korea Missile Launch, Apple e-Book Controversy


Financial News Fri Apr 13th 2012 – North Korea Missile Launch, Apple e-Book Controversy

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    The Wall Street Journal reports, J.P. Morgan’s first-quarter earnings fell 3.1% as legal expenses and debt-related charges weighed, beating Wall Street expectations, but masking a surprise increase in revenue. The banking giant’s results kick off the reporting season for U.S. banks, delivering investors the first look at a quarter, expected to show improvements at the nation’s largest financial institutions since end of 2011.
    The Wall Street Journal also reports, North Korea launched a multistage rocket Friday morning, again defying countries that want it to stop pursuing advanced weapons, but it blew up less than two minutes into flight. Despite the failure, the U.S. and its allies quickly condemned the launch, with the White House saying that, a food agreement it had reached with Pyongyang in February was dead. But the launch also denied North Korea a key propaganda victory, and raised questions about the state of its ballistic missile technology.
    Bloomberg reports, Google, the world’s largest Internet-search company, plans a new stock structure that gives management more leeway in issuing shares, while letting it keep control over the direction of the business. The stock change would create a new class of nonvoting shares, that will be distributed to existing shareholders, in what is effectively a 2-for-1 stock split. Google aims to prevent employee stock compensation and stock-based acquisitions from diluting the voting power of its founders.
    Finally Reuters reports, Apple has rejected the U.S. Justice Department’s allegations that it colluded with publishers, over electronic book pricing, calling the charges “simply not true.” The U.S. government had sued Apple and five publishers, saying they conspired to fix the prices of electronic books. It has reached a settlement with three of the publishers that could lead to cheaper e-books for consumers.

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