Friday morning headlines

Glass half full: First it was J.P. Morgan and this morning it's Citigroup. Banks are reporting lousy first-quarter numbers - in Citi's case it's a $5.1 billion loss - but they're apparently not as bad as they could have been, so the market is way up (200 points on the Dow at last check). The hope, of course, is that the worst of the red ink is behind us. “We believe we have substantially reduced our risk given the size of the write-downs we have taken the last few quarters,” said Gary L. Crittenden, the bank’s CFO. (NYT)

Tale of two economies: It's not just the banks that have investors encouraged. For all the bleak news in certain sectors - real estate, retail, airlines - some of the very big companies are holding up well. Among them are IBM, Coca-Cola and Google. It's tricky to generalize about this stuff, but companies that either do lots of business overseas (IBM is a good example) or sell to other companies (as opposed to consumers) appear to be having an easier time. From the WSJ:

Thus far, roughly 20% of the companies in the S&P 500 have reported, and overall first-quarter earnings are down 22.1%, according to Brown Brothers Harriman. But excluding financials, earnings are up by 8.2%. If the actual reported earnings are combined with estimates for the remaining companies, earnings are coming in slightly above expectations, at a 12.9% decline. Excluding financials, they're up a healthy 9.5% Brown Brothers says. If companies, which overall have strong balance sheets, can keep spending, the economy could yet avoid the kind of job cuts that would extend the downturn. It also means that a continued decline in home prices might have only a limited effect on the broader corporate earnings outlook. That would potentially allow stocks to finally climb higher.

Latest on gas: The Auto Club's latest survey, out this morning, looks even grimmer than the government's survey earlier in the week. The average price of self-serve regular gasoline in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area is $3.806, which is 49 cents above last year. This weekend, many of us will be paying more than $4 a gallon. I don't know about you, but it'll be a first for me.

End of an era: Toyota's decision to shut down its truck assembly line in North Long Beach brings an end to nearly 70 years of automobile production in Southern California. The production line is being shifted to a Toyota facility in West Virginia. The site employs nearly 700 workers. From the Press-Telegram:

The last auto assembly line regionally was at General Motors' Van Nuys factory, which closed in 1992. Before that, GM built its classic Caprice and Impala models at a facility in South Gate, while rival Ford operated a production line first in Long Beach, and later in Pico Rivera. Both sites closed in the early 1980s.

Ripping apart hedge funds: Their unregulated, speculative trades are having a hand in the jacked-up price of oil, which at $115 a barrel is clearly higher than market conditions would warrant. Michael Greenberger, law professor at the University of Maryland, talks to NPR's "Day to Day" about the dirty deeds the hedgers are pulling.

Just wondering...: If Tribune CEO Sam Zell was being honest during his conference call by saying that the company should be able to satisfy those sizeable debt payments - "It doesn't appear that we will have trouble meeting our commitments going forward" - why is he even consider selling off the Long Island newspaper Newsday? Wasn't selling off assets considered a last resort? (Chicago Tribune)

Sports stars cry fraud: Dodgers third-baseman Nomar Garciaparra and former Lakers general manager Jerry West are among those accusing L.A. investment advisor Gary Fournier of gouging them out of more than $3 million in commissions. In papers filed with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Fournier's clients say he churned accounts to generate unnecessary trades and exorbitant fees. The claim is similar to a civil lawsuit and will be resolved through binding arbitration proceedings. Fornier's lawyer says his client will be fully exonerated. From the LAT:

Those who now say they were defrauded include West, the Los Angeles Lakers' "Mr. Clutch" as a player and later a top executive, and General Manager Mitch Kupchak. Others include current and former National Basketball Assn. players B.J. Armstrong, Brent Barry, Stacey Augmon and Jeffrey West as well as former Major League Baseball players Sean Douglass, Mark Langston, Thomas P. O'Malley and Rex "Wonder Dog" Hudler, who is now a color commentator for the Angels.

Movin' on out: Rieva Lesonsky, the longtime editorial director of OC-based Entrepreneur Media, has left to start her own business. Also gone are Chuck Fuller, a senior VP of business development and Kate Rodler, a VP of ad sales. Entrepreneur was quietly put on the block in February. (NY Post)

"Gossip Girl" off the net: Call it too much of a good thing - and a scenario strikingly similar to what happened with newspapers a few years back. Basically, the CW teen show does very well when it’s streamed onto the Web - it's routinely one of the most downloaded shows on iTunes - and less well when it’s shown on television. Trouble is, Internet ad revenues are still not nearly as lucrative as those on the tube. So there’s no more streaming of new shows, at least for now. (Variety, LAT)

Meat inspectors can't keep up: One of their union officials told a House panel that the improper slaughter of cows at a Chino slaughterhouse was not an isolated incident. He said that the USDA's meat-inspection agency is so understaffed that some inspectors are assigned to as many as 24 plants. A union survey last year found that 75 percent of inspectors didn't visit their plants daily, as required. That would explain a lot. (WSJ)