Morning Market Roundup: Apple and Yahoo! Earnings, Greece Asks for Write Down

Here’s what’s important in the financial world this morning:

EU: Greece may need the European Central Bank and other public-sector holders of the country’s government bonds to take write-downs as a means to put the country on a “sustainable footing,” according to International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde.

“The balance between the participation of the private and public sector is a concerning question,” Lagarde said, according to MarketWatch.

This could pose a challenge as the ECB has been resistant to IMF pressure to reduce the value of its estimated €40 billion ($51.9 billion) Greek bonds.

(Related: Obama Will Push for Tax Reform in State of the Union Address.)

Asia: As expected, Japan’s Ministry of Finance reported that the country endured its first annual trade deficit since 1980. December’s trade gap was ¥205.1 billion yen ($2.63 billion), larger than the ¥150.5 billion forecast. December exports dropped 8 percent from the previous year, also greater than the 7.9 percent and 7.5 percent forecasts. In 2011, Japan’s trade deficit was ¥2.49 trillion.

Apple: The tech giant’s fiscal quarter one blew away analysts’ expectations with its net income jumping 118 percent to $13.06 billion ($13.87 per share). It is one of the most profitable quarters for a U.S. company ever.

Revenue jumped 73 percent to $46.3 billion on sales of 37 million iPhones, 15.4 million iPads, and 5.2 million Macs. Apple said on Tuesday that earnings would have been higher if it could have met demand. It has $97.6 billion in cash and in today’s trading, it could be the U.S.’s most most valuable company.

Yahoo!: Yahoo! reported its fourth quarter earnings on Tuesday and certainly didn’t fare as well as Apple. Its earnings per share dropped 5 percent to $0.24 (beating forecasts) with revenue declining 3 percent to $1.17 billion (missing expectations). Yahoo! reported its first earnings report under new chief executive Scott Thompson, who joined the company three weeks ago. He made no mention of the company’s new strategic direction.

[Editor’s note: the above is a cross post that originally appeared on Wall Street Cheat Sheet.]