Wall St. Brief: Amazon’s BIG Day, AIG Needs Money, and Navistar Earnings

Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) TV ambitions remain stagnant thanks to the cable-TV industry’s stubbornness to work with them, reported Bloomberg. Disagreements between the two include Apple’s user interface control, its ability to sell consumers hardware rather than lease it, and content deals. Apple has compromised over the last issue; it is “furthest along” in talks with Time Warner Cable (NYSE:TWC).

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After Wednesday’s smartphone unveilings by Nokia (NYSE:NOK) and Motorola (NASDAQ:GOOG), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) will join the party today with its own event. A TV ad has already been showing a “Paperwhite” backlit Kindle e-reader, a 7-inch Kindle Fire, and a second, larger Fire. Meanwhile, according to The Verge,  Amazon may show its rumored but unfinished smartphone.

AIG (NYSE:AIG) reportedly will raise close to $2 billion by selling a portion of its 18 percent share in AIA Group (AAIGF.PK). AIG is offering 600 million shares between  HK$25.75-HK$26.75 each vs. AIA’s Hong Kong closing price of HK$26.30 ($3.39) on Thursday. The news comes after Tuesday’s expiration of the lock-up on AIG’s holding in AIA.

Navistar (NYSE:NAV) dodged a FQ3 net loss from a $196 million tax benefit that helped to offset the company’s botched attempt to create a  a new diesel engine. Navistar did see its net profit fall to $84 million from $1.4 billion in 2011, but it could have been worse. Without the tax benefit, Navistar would have incurred a $100 million loss. Revenue fell 6 percent to $3.32 billion, affected by declining military sales and South American engine volumes.

The merger between Glencore (GLCNF.PK) and Xstrata (XSRAF.PK) could still be saved before a vote of the latter’s shareholders on Friday, reported the Wall Street Journal. Glencore has said it would not accept major Xstrata investor Qatar Holdings demands and raise its offer price, but one phone call could change things.

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