This is what’s in the news for Tuesday, May 15, 2012. The Wall Street Journal reports Macy’s (NYSE:M) is building a network of online-sales distribution centers around the country in the backrooms of its stores, responding to a distribution war going on in the retail business increasingly being won by Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN). The Wall Street Journal also reports Baidu Inc. (NASDAQ:BIDU) will launch a low-cost smartphone running its newest mobile operating software, as the company that dominates Internet searches in China looks to shore up its presence in the mobile-device field. Reuters reports President Obama said the trading loss at JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:JPM) illustrated the need for Wall Street reform and warned that the same kind of error at a less stable bank may have required government intervention. Reuters also reports Macquarie Group, Principal Financial Group (NYSE:PFG) and Singapore’s United Overseas Bank are among suitors that submitted bids for ING’s (NYSE:ING) Asian asset management business that may be worth $500M-$600M, sources say. Bloomberg reports Blackstone Group (NYSE:BX) and TPG Capital are among global firms being pushed aside as preferred investors in China as investments by Chinese firms jumped to $7.8B last year. Finally, Bloomberg reports Amylin Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:AMLN) has attracted suitors that include Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN) and Sanofi (NYSE:SNY), which signed confidentiality agreements on the drugmaker’s sale process.

Lam Research (LRCX) was downgraded today by JP Morgan (JPM) to underweight from neutral with a price target of $35, as the firm expects slower growth during the second half of the year. Shares are lower by about 4.9 percent.

Barclays (BCS) was upgraded today by UBS (UBS) from neutral to buy with a price target of $13.85, as the firm believes that the stock is attractive at current price levels. Shares are higher by about one percent.

In trading on Wednesday, precious metals shares were relative leaders, up on the day by about 2.2%. Leading the group were shares of Seabridge Gold (SA), up about 6.3% and shares of Silvercorp Metals (SVM) up about 6.2% on the day.

Chico’s (CHS) announced that it earned $53.6 million, or 32 cents per share in its most recent fiscal quarter, versus $45.9 million, or 26 cents per share, in the same period last year, beating analyst estimates of 30 cents per share. Revenue increased by 21 percent to $650.8 million, beating estimates of $628.1 million.

First job finances with Rick Reagan 5-16-12

Statoil (STO) was upgraded today by UBS (UBS) from neutral to buy with a price target of $29.98 as the firm believes that the company’s financial and operational performance has improved. Shares are lower by about four tenths of a percent.

Amazon. om (AMZN) was upgraded today by Credit Suisse (CS) to outperform from neutral with a price target of $270, as recent investments made by the company should start to pay off and add to earnings soon.

Jim Hanna: Don’t Let Divorce Derail Your Finances

Bargain hunters are wise to pay careful attention to insider buying, because although there are many various reasons for an insider to sell a stock, presumably the only reason they would use their hard-earned dollars to make a purchase, is that they expect to make money. Today we look at two noteworthy recent insider buys.

The Daily Ticker’s Aaron Task and Henry Blodget interview Simon Johnson about JPMorgan’s $2 billion tradong loss

Saks (SKS) announced that it earned $32.1 million, or 18 cents per share, versus $28.4 million, or 16 cents per share, in the same period last year. Excluding construction related costs, the company would have earned 19 cents per share.

The EUR/USD fell to the lowest level since the middle of January and looks to test 1.2700 soon. The low for the year was registered on January 13th at 1.2623.

Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson handed in his resignation letter today. The company is reshuffling its board and the head of global media, Ross Levinsohn, was named the interim CEO.It’s hard to say if the investors were more upset about Thompson’s original misrepresentation or the way he addressed this matter last week. He told Yahoo employees the reason why his resume was not accurate was because the recruiter who landed him his previous job at eBay wrote it wrong. The information in this false resume was subsequently published as part of his public bio at eBay and stayed with him.Thompson’s four months at Yahoo have been lucrative. According to Yahoo’s public filing with the SEC, Thompson received a sign-on bonus of $1.5 million in cash and $5.5 million in stock on top of a $1 million salary and other incentive compensations.Send in your comments to our show about this compensation level, or you can tweet me @juliasun_onair. I’m Julia Sun for the Financial News Network. We’ll be right back.

Spanish government is asking domestic banks to put aside extra cash to buffer the potential real estate price swings. This time the top five lenders will set aside €15B and this is the second time that the Spanish government demanded so in 3 months. In February, banks were asked to increase their capital buffer requirements by €54B by the end of the year.This further signals the weakness of European financial institutions after one of the largest Spanish banks, Bankia, was effectively taken over by the state at the end of last week. Bankia was formed in 2010 from a merger of 7 small savings banks and was listed on the exchange in summer 2011. It raised €3.3B for the IPO, but since then, real estate prices in Spain continued to fall and there is little indication that prices have bottomed. With a large amount of real estate assets in its portfolio, Bankia’s share prices lost 40% compare to IPO up until last week. With the announcement of state takeover, it dropped another 10+% and hit its all time low today at €1.86.

Arch Coal (ACI) was upgraded today by UBS (UBS) from neutral to buy with a price target of $11 as most of the negative catalysts that were dragging down the share price, including the debt/dividend overhang, are now in the past. Shares are higher by about 1.2 percent.

Stocks rallying off earlier losses as Greek leaders set a meeting for tomorrow in an effort to prevent a possible exit from the Euro. Traders say that meeting is supposed to take place at 7am New York time on Tuesday.

In trading on Monday, specialty retail shares were relative leaders, up on the day by about 0.1%. Leading the group were shares of Golfsmith International Holdings (GOLF), up about 28.2% and shares of Barnes & Noble (BKS) up about 1.8% on the day.

The first trading day of the week has investors fretting over a political impasse in Greece and an economic slowdown in China. Good morning, this is Kristin Bianco with the Week Ahead Market Report for May 14, 2012.

Finance ministers of the 17 euro countries meet to discuss Greece where a political deadlock raises the prospect of the country’s exit from the euro zone.