Stocks in the news: Ford, Intel, Kroger

The following post rounds up the companies making headlines today:

Ford Motor Co. (F), Nissan Motor Co. (NSANY) and Tesla Motors Inc. are getting billions in government loans from the Energy Department $25 billion fund to help the automakers develop fuel-efficient vehicles, congressional officials say. Ford said it expects to receive $5 billion through the program by 2011. Nissan, meanwhile said it would unveil its first electric vehicle in Japan on August 2 and begin sales next year. It also said its electric vehicles will be affordable, and plans to mass produce the zero-emission cars globally from 2012.

Intel Corp. (INTC) will sell processors for mobile devices to Nokia Oyj (NOK), marking the biggest breakthrough in Intel's expansion into the phone market, a person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.The details are confidential. While Intel is the world's biggest chipmaker whose microprocessors run more than 80 percent of the world's personal computers, it has struggled for about a decade to get a foothold in the market for mobile-phone chips.