Morning Roundup

The Morning Roundup distills the top financial stories from the region and around the globe into bite-sized chunks for your daily consumption.

International story of the day:

US bank stress test results are released amid less-terrible-than-before economic data

It has been an interesting weekend across the Atlantic. As expected, the US government on Thursday

for the country's major banks, and it turns out that most won't need to raise new capital. Those that do, including Citi,

and Bank of America, are to

by November, a lower figure than analysts expected. Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley have

, though

needs way more than the $1.8bn it was told to raise. Meanwhile, GMAC, the financing arm of General Motors, appears to be in

. It may need a

from the government. And America's regional banks are

of their own, which

may cause a wave of mergers. Also over the weekend, American jobs figures came in, showing that

, but at a slower pace than before.

Regional story of the day:

Taking stock

First-quarter results continue to pour in from companies in the region, and overall, things are looking a little more positive and less uncertain than was the case a few months back. Markets have been on an upward swing lately, punctuated by better-than-expected results from a bevy of local companies late last week and into the weekend. Air Arabia's first-quarter profits

; Mashreqbank also

. Shuaa Capital, the Dubai-based investment bank,

late on Thursday, but the results came out a bit better than in previous quarters. Kuwait's central bank governor said over the weekend that his country's financial system was

. Today's

may shed more light on just where we stand on the path to recovery as GCC officials push towards a delayed monetary union.

The rest:

Personal finance gurus: all wrong, all the time? [

]

The US bailout won't work, a large hedge fund firm says [

]

Ratings agencies must reform, might even be controlled by investors [

]

An

excellent

interactive chart on US banks' capital needs [

]

Can it really be this bad? A cemetery in the US files for foreclosure [

]