Overall, not a bad Friday: The Dow is up and going strong at 8,110 points this afternoon. NASDAQ and S&P500 are up over 2% as well. Ford made an announcement about its first quarter performance that pleased the investors: the company burned through less cash in Q1 2009, than it did in Q4 2008. Ford reported that it reduced its structural costs by $1.9 billion and cut its debt obligations by $10.1 billion. That being said, Ford posted a loss of $1.8 billion in the first quarter of 2009. However, the markets’ expectations were low to begin with, so that too was considered good news. The Federal Reserve released information about the methods it used to conduct the stress tests on 19 lending institutions (here’s a list of the banks that were subject to tests). However, the results of the tests were not released, for instance, how much capital the banks will be required to have, but the Fed said that “Most U.S. banking organizations currently have capital levels well in excess of the amounts required to be well capitalized.” Also, this weekend the IMF will hold its bi-annual meetings in Washington D.C. (The Foggy Bottom area residents should brace themselves for the influx of earnest looking men in suits and ties). Bloomberg News obtained a draft of G-7 Finance Ministers’ communiqué stating that global economic activity should begin to recover later this year and that “recent data suggest that the pace of decline in our economies has slowed, and some signs of stabilization are emerging.” Sounds like “good news, doesn’t it….