MORGAN STANLEY

Some banks may have to retain earnings and shareholder dividends to meet the new requirement.

Cosmetics maker Coty opened their first IPO this week, and are expected to receive more than $1 billion in offers.

The banks have provided term loans to finance the Smithfield deal, the largest purchase of an American company by a Chinese company.

The nation's sixth-largest bank is expected to swing to a profit in the first quarter as equity underwriting increases.

Big banks' first-quarter revenue will rise only 2.2% above that of fourth quarter 2012, an analysis by Bloomberg News showed.

Repros Therapeutics, Sprint Nextel, Biogen Idec, Diageo, and Carnival prevailed in the pre-market trading Thursday.

The search engine, which could have an IPO in the next 20 days, draws from a national database of local businesses, services and product.

ING is the latest European financial services company to lay off thousands of employees amid the region's debt crisis.

A judge set Jan. 23 for a pretrial conference on the class-action lawsuit against Facebook.

Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS), lead underwriter of the $109 billion initial public offering of Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) was fined $5 million by Massachusetts regulators.

Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) sold $3 billion in bonds at very low rates for what it termed “general corporate purposes.”

An array of global economic and financial factors are combining to support the price of gold.

Shares of BMC Software, which specializes in enterprise products, soared nearly 8 percent after a report it’s exploring a sale.

FedEx's forecast cut, signs of stagnation in Germany, drops in oil price and looming political tensions spell trouble for the global economy.

General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) and ING Groep NV (NYSE: ING) may sell their stakes in two Thailand banks, but their message to Asia's 11th largest economy could very well be, "It's not you, it's us."

The top after-market Nasdaq gainers Thursday were Analogic Corporation, Tessera Technologies Inc, Big 5 Sporting Goods Corporation, MannKind Corporation and Skullcandy. The top after-market Nasdaq losers were Werner Enterprises Inc, Green Plains Renewable Energy Inc, Royal Gold Inc, Affymetrix Inc and Susser Holdings Corporation.

China's economic slowdown is expected to reach its nadir in the third quarter, leaving growth for 2012 likely to fall below 8 percent, a level unseen since 1999. While top Chinese leaders remain confident that the world's second-largest economy still has "ample strength" in either monetary or fiscal domains to propel economic growth, economists caution that the $158 billion stimulus unveiled by China may not be all it's hyped up to be.

HSBC has cut its India GDP forecast for the fiscal 2013 to 5.7 percent from the previous forecast of 6.2 percent, citing "the lack of reform traction" and a more "challenging" global economic state of affairs.

Alcatel Lucent SA, Nokia Corp, Sohu.com, Facebook, Barclays, Banco Santander, Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp, Morgan Stanley and Apple Inc. are among the companies whose shares are moving in pre-market trading Wednesday.

Volkswagen AG (PINK: VLKAY) cuts its internal European 2012 annual sales guidance by 150,000 vehicles, according to German news magazine Der Spiegel, Reuters reported.

Because of the U.S. Treasury Department's announcement Sunday that it has launched an offering of $18 billion worth of its American International Group Inc. (NYSE: AIG) common stock, the government will soon go from being the company's majority shareholder to being one of its minority shareholders.