us bancorp

Gainers

• Financial Select Sector SPDR (NYSE: XLF) up 1.81% to $16.33. Midday surge following the Fed giving the nod for banks to increase dividends.
  
  Several banks increased their dividends today, including J.P. Morgan (NYSE: JPM), BB&T (NYSE: BBT), and US Bancorp (NYSE: USB), with stock buybacks also announced.
• SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE: GLD) up 1.09% to $138.46.
  
  Gold getting some attention today, as investors are looking for a little insulation amid fluctuating world currencies.

Here is a recap of the top news items from this week on Wall Street: 1. Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) shares jumped almost 5% on Tuesday and another 3% on Wednesday following, as expected, very strong earnings reported on Monday night.

Q3 non-GAAP EPS came in at $1.82, walloping the Street's $1.42 estimate, while quarterly sales came in at $9.87 billion.

Guidance was expectantly conservative, as always. 2.

UPGRADES: UBS upgrades Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) from Neutral to Buy, citing higher iPhone expectations.

The firm also raised its price target from $170 to $265. This new target represents the new "Street high". Click here for more color.

Oppenheimer upgrades Intel Corporation (Nasdaq: INTC) from Market Perform to Outperform with a $28 price target.

UPGRADES: Goldman Sachs upgrades QUALCOMM Inc.

(Nasdaq: QCOM) from Neutral to Buy and added the stock to their Conviction Buy List with a $53 price target Merrill Lynch/BAM is out with a major call on Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) upgrading their rating to Buy from Underperform and adding the stock to their U.S 1 Focust list with a $27 tgt (prev.

$18). Click here for more color.

Warren Buffett's company found more bargains among beaten down marquee stocks during the first quarter as it added to its sizable investments in Wells Fargo & Co., US Bancorp and Johnson & Johnson.

Here is a recap of the top news items from this week on Wall Street: 1. Equity offerings were all the rage this week as stocks (as measured by the S&P 500) have now rallied nearly 30% from the March lows, prompting companies to "sell high".

The offering hysteria began with financials following last week's TARP results, but soon expanded to other sectors of the market.

Capital One, US Bancorp and BB&T announced plans to pay down the government’s investments under the TARP program by selling billions of dollars in new stock.

The bank cut its dividend 85 percent, saying the widely expected move would save $5 billion a year. The reduction follows similar cuts by JPMorgan Chase, PNC Financial Services Group and US Bancorp.