Among the premarket stories for Monday, Jan. 5, from AP Financial News:

Expectations for further loan losses led an analyst late Sunday to cut his 2009 and 2010 earnings estimates for Wells Fargo & Co.

A pair of analysts cut their profit estimates on Bank of America Corp. on Monday, noting the potential for higher loan losses in the coming year.

Deutsche Bank analyst Mike Mayo late Sunday cut his 2009 profit estimate on JPMorgan Chase & Co., forecasting higher loan losses across a number of portfolios.

The good news for the auto industry in December came when General Motors and Chrysler got their federal bailout. The bad news is coming Monday, when automakers are expected to report another month of staggering sales declines.

Shares of hospital operator MedCath Corp. dropped in Friday trading after an analyst said Wall Street expectations are far too high and downgraded the stock.

A Deutsche Bank analyst downgraded shares of LHC Group Inc. Friday, but said the home-nursing provider should have a solid year in 2009, even if its stock won't repeat the strong gains it made in 2008.

Storms weren't the only thing that battered insurance companies in 2008, and the new year could be just as tough.

Health insurer Amerigroup Inc. said Wednesday it is ending an agreement to buy the New Jersey Medicaid business of rival Centene Corp.

IndyMac Bancorp, one of the largest banks to fail as a result of the subprime mortgage crisis, is close to being sold to a consortium of private equity and hedge fund firms in a complex deal partly financed by the federal government, the New York Times reports.

Among the premarket stories for Monday, Jan. 2, from AP Financial News:

Standard & Poor's lowered the credit ratings and outlooks for 12 major U.S. and European banks Friday, including Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, citing increasing industry risk and a deepening economic slowdown.

Europe's investment banks face another 14 billion euros ($18.9 billion) of writedowns for the current quarter, with Deutsche Bank and Credit Agricole most exposed, analysts at JPMorgan said on Tuesday.

Huntsman said on Sunday it had terminated its $6.5 billion agreement to be acquired by Apollo Management's Hexion Specialty Chemicals and settled litigation against the private equity firm for $1 billion.

M&A banking next year will be more Accident and Emergency than Mergers and Acquisitions as companies slim down, banks pair up and the strong eat the weak.