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Fewer Americans than expected filed for jobless benefits last week, calming some concerns about the jobs market recovery after a disappointing April employment report. However, many signs point to the fact that companies are still very cautious about adding workers.

Bond investors brought the governments of Spain and Italy to the brink of crisis Friday as the cost of borrowing rose to nearly unsustainable levels.

The bond market focused Thursday on weak economic data while equity investors responded to news that an unexpectedly high number of people sought first-time jobless benefits, leaving both types of securities higher.

Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC), the second largest U.S. bank by assets, said its first-quarter earnings fell 68 percent due to a $4.8 billion accounting charge related to debt valuation.

Global markets saw a shallow but broad selloff Wednesday, as unsettling news from Spain combined with a histrionic report by the International Monetary Fund to give investors pause regarding the situation in Europe.

BlackRock Inc , the world's largest asset manager, said first-quarter profits were steady, bolstered by strong inflows into its popular iShares exchange-traded fund business.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS), the fifth-largest U.S. bank by assets, said Tuesday it had 23% less profit in the first quarter on falling investment banking and trading revenue, but its revenue beat analyst forecasts as it raised its dividend.

Investment management firm Loomis Sayles' stock market forecast for 2012 and beyond is quite bullish.

Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) kicked off Monday morning by announcing underwhelming first-quarter earnings that narrowly missed analyst expectations on both profit and revenue. The New York-based banking giant reported earnings of $2.93 billion, or 95 cents per share on revenues of $19.41 billion. Earnings a year ago had been reported as $3 billion, or $1 a share, on revenues of $19.73 billion. Analysts had expected earnings to be flat from year-ago results.

Risky assets rose on moderate volume and moderately bad news Thursday, as investors seemed to be placing a paradoxical bet that a slowdown in economic growth would jolt the U.S. central bank into action -- inflating the prices of stocks, commodities and other assets -- while at the same time assuming the slowdown would not be so harsh as to throw the current recovery completely off track.

Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) is expected to report a big jump in quarterly earnings and a small rise in revenue on increasing mortgage refinancing during the first three months of the year.

Stock futures on U.S. indexes, which stopped trading at 9:15 a.m. EDT because of the Good Friday holiday, plunged after the Labor Department reported weaker-than-expected jobs numbers for March.

The head of Traxis Partners still believes U.S. stocks will head higher in coming months, but he's concerned about a near-term pullback as the European debt crisis intensifies and hopes for more Fed bond-buying dim.

Two of the most iconic American brands suffered setbacks to their credit ratings on Wednesday, evidence that some of the nation's most visible economic engines could face higher borrowing costs.

Stocks and other risky assets rallied Friday, rounding out the quarter with even more price gains on a day that encapsulated the main developments of the year so far: encouraging news out of Europe, better-than-expected consumer sentiment in the United States, and the perceived and steady pull of inflation.

Morgan Stanley has placed a senior investment banker on leave following his arrest this week on assault and hate crime charges for allegedly stabbing a taxi driver over a fare dispute.

The European Central Bank gave the world's financial system a €529.5 ($712) billion Leap Year Day gift, providing financial institutions with that amount in one percent-interest, three-year loans this week, the bank announced Wednesday morning.

Market participants are seemingly expecting European banks to take up a massive amount of euro over the next 24 hours, as the European Central Bank offers them a second helping of ultra-low cost loans. The banks themselves, not so much.

The European Central Bank is ready to engage in a new round of aggressive liquidity provision this week, flooding European banks with hundreds of millions of euro worth of cheap financing meant to prop up the tattered European banking and sovereign credit funding systems.

Customers of MF Global's broker-dealer unit say at least $120 million in insurance policies for the company's executives should instead go toward filling a massive hole in their accounts.

Italy's bonds have made sizzling returns this year but fears the country will lose its investment-grade status are putting off long-term investors whose support Rome needs to tackle a mountain of refinancing and ease worries about its debt.