Wells Fargo & Co intends to sell $10 billion in stocks so as to fund its acquisition of Wachovia Corp, and said that losses from the purchase will be lower than previously estimated.

Headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo &Co is the largest bank on the US West Coast. On Wednesday the bank announced the share offering in a statement and also added that recent accounting adjustments had allowed it to slash the expected losses from Wachovia’s portfolio to $71.4 billion from an earlier estimate of $74 billion.

Previously Wells Fargo had said that it would need to raise around $20 billion to fund the acquisition of Wachovia. However this was before the US Treasury said that as part of its bank rescue measures, it would buy up to $25 billion of preferred shares of Wells Fargo & Co. last month bank president Richard Kovacevich said that the company would raise money over and above the Treasury’s commitment since the acquisition of Wachovia would double the size the new banking company.

The purchase of Charlotte-based Wachovia will make Wells Fargo the largest bank in United States by the number of branches. It will also give Wells Fargo a valuable opportunity to expand its base in the East Coast.

News Corp, the media company owned by Rupert Murdoch has announced that it is lowering its earnings forecast for 2009 in the wake of shrinking ad sales at its Fox stations and newspapers.

New York-based News Corp said on Thursday that fiscal profit for 2009 will drop in the “low to mid teens” in percentage terms as advertising sales continue to fall and a stronger dollar undercuts earnings. Previously the company had forecast a gain of 4 to 6 percent in profits.

According to Rupert Murdoch, the lowering of forecasts is mainly due to General Motor Corp cutting back on spending by 50%. GM Motors has been a major television marketer but the continuing slump in the auto industry has forced GM Motors to undertake drastic cost-cutting measures. Profits from Fox television stations plunged by 70% to $54 million in the first quarter ending 30th September.

The lowering of profit forecast for 2009 led to a slide in stocks of News Corp which plunged as much as by 22%. on Thursday News Corp shares fell A$3.02 to A$12.88 at 11:32 a.m local time in Sydney, marking the largest drop since December 1990. in New York the Class A shares lost around 21 percent in regular and extended trading sessions.

Newly-elected US President Barack Obama set aside victory celebrations of Wednesday and set about to meet the financial challenges facing the country even as fresh economic data fuelled fears of a long and painful recession.

A plunge in the Wall Street on Wednesday appeared as a sharp reminder of the breadth of economic problems staring at the country. Even amidst the victory celebrations, the Dow Jones Industrial average dropped more than 5% or 486 points to settle at 9139. The plunge effectively wiped out Tuesday’s rise of 300 points which had marked the biggest election day gain in 24 years.

The most recent monthly employment figures to be released showed that 1, 57,000 jobs were lost in October primarily due to a sharp contraction in service sector activity.

The global financial crisis had emerged as the dominant issue in the just-concluded US presidential elections. to a great extent Obama owes his victory to the perceived inability of the Bush administration to foresee the mortgage and finance crisis and act promptly to contain its impact which by now has not only affected US economy but also spilled to the rest of the world. Among the major economic problems that Obama stands to inherit are plunging house prices, a failing auto industry, chaotic stock markets and failing banks.

The President of Delta Airlines Inc is reported to have made $1. 04 million in sale of stocks after senior Delta executives earned stock bonuses by acquiring the Northwest Airlines reveal Government documents.

According to filings made with Securities and Exchanges Commission, Delta Airlines President Ed Bastian and other company executives who actively participated in the Northwest acquisition have sold hundreds of thousands of stock in recent days. While Bastian sold 100,000 shares for $1.04 million at $10.45 per share, the new Delta Chief Financial Officer Hank Halter sold over 64,000 shares for $694,000 at $10.75 per share.

Among other top executives of Delta to have sold the lucrative stock bonuses were Mike Campbell, executive vice president of human resources and labor relations and Glen Hauenstein, executive vice president for network planning and revenue management.

Delta Airlines received federal approval for the acquisition of Northwest Airlines on October 29 in an all-stock deal worth $2.7 billion. According to the deal, over 15% of the company’s’ stocks would go to company employees. Over the following days, Delta CEO Richard Anderson and several top executives from Delta as well as Northwest Airlines received stock and vested stock options priced at tens of millions of dollars combined.

The world’s number two chip manufacturer Advance Micro Devices has announced that it will lay off at least 500 workers in an attempt to save costs and return to profitability.

The latest round of job cuts by Sunnyvale-based AMD will affect 3 percent of its staff employed in departments across the world. Only the company’s manufacturing operations are expected to emerge unharmed which includes around 3000 employees and which is set to be spun off into a separate company.

The recent lay offs by AMD constitute its second biggest attempt at restructuring this year. so far the company has already cut 1600 jobs, replaced its chief executive officer announced plans to spin off factories which are a big drain on its resources.

AMD’s financial troubles go back before the onset of the economic downturn and much of them are reported to be self-inflicted. Over the past eight quarters The company has lost around $5.6 billion in production delays and costly acquisitions. These have not only resulted in heavy losses but also allowed bigger competitors like Intel Corp to gain market share. While Intel controls around 80% of the world market for computer microprocessors, AMD has the rest.