Media Digest (7/25/2011) Reuters, WSJ, NYT, FT, Bloomberg

Congress and the White House have made little progress on the debt talks (Reuters)

The U.S. has come perilously close to a cut of its debt to Aa (Reuters)

Moody’s warned that a Greek default was all but certain (Reuters)

The debt standoff has begun to move investors out of stock and into gold (Reuters)

The bond curve steepened as a U.S. default became more likely (Reuters)

China ordered the closing of two fake Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) stores (Reuters)

Apple’s sales in China are expected to rocket higher (Reuters)

U.S. airlines are faced with higher security fees (Reuters)

Farm subsidy program payouts have been undermined by high grain prices (WSJ)

Earnings gains in S&P 500 stocks are increasingly from overseas (WSJ)

TDAmeritrade (NASDAQ: AMTD) will consider a bid for E*Trade (NASDAQ: ETFC) (WSJ)

Job additions will be a bigger issue in UAW negotiations than pay (WSJ)

The Bank of Ireland will get outside investment (WSJ)

Spain will exert more power over budgets among its regional governments (WSJ)

United Technologies (NYSE: UTX) may sell its Rocketdyne rocket operation (WSJ)

The UAW will concentrate on labor relations at a new VW plant (WSJ)

“Captain America: The First Avenger” was the No.1 movie of the weekend grossing $65.8 million (WSJ)

States are trying to cut public pension benefits (WSJ)

Dunkin’ Donuts leads a list of 11 IPOs this week (WSJ)

A debt deal for Greece will protect balance sheets of many large European banks (WSJ)

China and Iran will set up an oil barter system (FT)

Money market funds have cut their exposure to European banks (FT)

JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM) says a breakup of BP plc (NYSE: BP) similar to that of ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) could be worth $100 billion to investors (Bloomberg)

Samsung smartphone sales may pass Apple’s (Bloomberg)

Douglas A. McIntyre