QuarterlyEarnings posts
FeedPosted Nov 4th 2009 11:00AM by Mark Fightmaster (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Time Warner (TWX)

Media giant
Time Warner (NYSE:
TWX) reported third-quarter earnings this morning and issued a stronger outlook. During the quarter,
earnings dropped 38%, thanks to declines at its AOL division (parent of BloggingStocks) and publishing segments.
Excluding items, TWX's earnings checked in at 61 cents per share, topping the consensus estimate by 8 cents per share. Quarterly revenue slipped 6% to $7.1 billion, matching the consensus estimate. Looking ahead, TWX forecast adjusted earnings of at least $2.05 per share. This forecast is higher than the $1.98 per share the company issued earlier and the $2.02 per share that the Street expects.
Continue reading Time Warner tops expectations in the third quarter
Posted Oct 6th 2009 9:50AM by Mark Fightmaster (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports

On Tuesday morning,
Pepsi Bottling Group (NYSE:
PBG) reported
third-quarter earnings of $1.14 per share. The earnings include a net, post-tax gain of eight cents per share from favorable settlement of tax audits, restructuring charges, advisory fees, and gains from commodity hedges. A year ago, PBG earned $1.06 during the third quarter, which was matched by this year's results.
Unfortunately for PBG, expectations called for $1.08 per share, leaving the stock lagging a bit in pre-market trade. Looking ahead, PBG expects earnings near the high end of its previously forecast range of $2.30 to $2.40. The Street expects the bottler to rake in $2.39 per share, so it seems that the company may be able to achieve expectations at first glance.
Continue reading Pepsi Bottling Group earnings miss expectations
Posted Jul 16th 2009 9:30AM by Mark Fightmaster (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Goldman Sachs Group (GS)

Investment bank
JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:
JPM) announced that
second-quarter earnings checked in at 28 cents per share -- or $2.72 billion. A year ago, the financial giant reported earnings of $2 billion, or 53 cents per share. This year's quarterly earnings included a charge of 27 cents per share after JPM repaid the $25 billion invested by the government in the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). There was also a 10-cent-per-share penalty thanks to a special assessment from the FDIC. Expectations called for earnings of four cents per share.
JPM also reported record first-half revenue, stemming from "solid" performances in its commercial banking, asset management, treasury and security services, and its retail banking. That said, JPM expects credit costs to remain elevated in the "foreseeable future." No doubt that these results will lend some bullish momentum to Wall Street today, as JPM's earnings reinforce the quarterly results from Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS).
Continue reading JP Morgan easily tops Q2 earnings expectations
Posted May 5th 2009 8:16AM by Mark Fightmaster (RSS feed)
Filed under: Before the bell, Earnings reports

This morning, Swiss bank
UBS (NYSE:
UBS) reported a
first-quarter loss of roughly $1.75 billion, adding a warning that bad-debt charges could increase. UBS's loss of 1.98 billion Swiss francs was far better than the 11.62 billion Swiss francs that the bank lost a year ago.
While UBS saw improved sentiment during the quarter, the bank remains cautious about its immediate outlook, noting, "The strong influence that government policy has on the market environment was clearly demonstrated in the first quarter as investors became less risk averse. However, the real economy has continued to deteriorate, and this is expected to have negative implications for credit-related provisioning in coming quarters."
Continue reading UBS narrows quarterly loss after write-downs
Posted Apr 1st 2009 8:30AM by Mark Fightmaster (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Good news

After the close Tuesday, education firm
Apollo Group (NASDAQ:
APOL) reported
stronger-than-expected quarterly earnings. Despite the strong results, the stock dropped in post-market trade, shedding 6% to trade in the $73 region.
APOL's second-quarter earnings came in at 77 cents per share, far better than the loss of 19 cents per share a year ago. Quarterly revenue increased 26% to $876.1 million. The results also easily eclipsed analysts' expectations for earnings of 65 cents per share. APOL CEO Chas Edelstein noted, "we are pleased with the growth in revenue and enrollments in our second quarter and we believe we are continuing to benefit from investments we are making in key academic and operational areas."
Continue reading Apollo Group posts solid quarterly earnings
Posted Jul 7th 2008 10:35AM by Douglas McIntyre (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Apple Inc (AAPL), Cisco Systems (CSCO), Economic data
As each day passes, estimates for how bad Q2 earnings will be grows. According to The Wall Street Journal, "analysts estimate S&P 500 operating earnings -- income excluding one-time items -- fell 11.5% in the second quarter."
While the paper points out that earnings often come in a bit worse than expected, this quarter could be a bit different. Everyone expected the numbers to be bad in sectors including banking, brokerage, insurance, autos, and airlines. But the real question is whether business and consumer spending have been hit harder than predicted.
If spending is down, even companies which are expected to do fairly well such as Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) could face rough earnings reports as big business and the little consumers defer purchases which they feel they cannot afford. That means that tech earnings, which were expected to be OK, could take a big hit.
If tech falters, what is left? Energy and commodities companies? Perhaps, but that is thin ground on which to build an earnings season.
Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.
Posted Oct 31st 2007 10:44AM by Brian White (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Clorox Co (CLX)
Clorox Co. (NYSE:
CLX) reported a
Q1 profit drop this morning on the back of raw material cost increases. It also announced that it will pay just under a billion ($925 million) for Burt's Bees, a leading provider of natural health care products. Burt's Bees has moved from health food stores and organic markets to the mainstream mass market in the last few years, probably marketing itself to be sold. Apparently, it worked.
Clorox's net income dropped to $111 million ($0.76 per share) from $112 million from the year-ago period, which could be seen as a slight decline based on commodity price swings in 2007 alone. Sales for the Q1 period did rise to $1.24 billion, a 6.7% increase.
Clorox indeed said in its earnings release that corn and soybean prices were main factors in the profit decline. Those two food commodities are used in its Hidden Valley food products (namely salad dressings). Resin prices rose in the quarter as well to their highest levels ever, affecting plastic products such as Glad trash bag products and bottles used to hold its namesake bleach.
All in all, Clorox's quarter was not bad considering the commodity turmoil it has exposure to, but I have to question the valuation of Burt's Bees. How did the company come up with a valuation of nearly a billion dollars? Clorox, are you listening?
Visit AOL Money & Finance for more earnings coveragePosted Oct 18th 2007 9:50AM by Brian White (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Good news, Nokia Corp. (NOK), Smartphones
Nokia Corp. (NYSE:
NOK), the world's largest manufacturer of wireless handsets, saw a very admirable rise in Q3 profit levels -- to the tune of 85% growth -- on the backs of increasing awareness and sales in emerging markets. Nokia, which has about
39% share of the global cellphone market at this time, also explained that it expected this level to remain throughout the Q4 period.
Years ago, the word was that Nokia had lost some edge and that
Motorola (NYSE:
MOT) and South Korean stalwart Samsung Electronics would eat handily into Nokia's market share. That has not happened, as Samsung has still been growing, and Motorola's product lineup has completely stagnated
until just recently. Nokia went on the offensive at the end of 2005 with higher-end smartphones, decent mid-level phones and an attack into the entry-level, emerging market and has not looked back since.
Nokia's Q3 net income beat analyst estimates as well, coming in at €1.56 billion ($2.21 billion), or 40 eurocents per share. Nokia executives explained the growth as coming from new, lucrative multimedia handsets in addition to growing sales in emerging markets. One gray cloud over the company for Q3 was from its
mobile networks joint venture with Germany's Siemens AG. As what seems always to happen, handset sales are the growth engine, while infrastructure and related equipment take a back seat. In Q3, that seat was at the very rear of the bus for Nokia.
Posted Oct 18th 2007 9:42AM by Brian White (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Bad news, Pfizer (PFE)
Pfizer (NYSE:
PFE) saw a sharp drop in its third-quarter profit, as the world's largest drugmaker's net income declined 77% for its most recently completed quarter. Two big takeaways here: Pfizer exited the Exubera inhaled-insulin product market (taking a $2.8 billion charge in the process) and the company faced more severe generic product competition as well.
Generic drugs always hamper big pharma firms, and it's not going to get any easier in the next few years. Pfizer even lowered its 2007 net income forecast when it released Q3 results,
partly on expanded generic competition. Try this on for size: Pfizer's Q3 profit came in at $761 million, down from $3.36 billion in the year-ago quarter. Sales fell 2% in the quarter to come in at $12 billion.
In what could be considered a lack of due diligence (oddly) or some terrible mis-forecasting, Pfizer's purchase of the worldwide rights to the Exubera product from Europe's Sanofi-Aventis in 2006
was a complete disaster. The $1.4 billion purchase produced Q2 revenue for Pfizer of $4 million. Let's see: even nominal growth rates would have given Pfizer perhaps $20 million in global annual revenue. Yikes -- that's more than a 20-year period for return there. Pfizer called Exubera numbers "disappointing," but I would call them "totally disastrous." Adding to the pain are the exclusivity losses for blockbuster products like Zithromax, Zoloft and Norvasc, but at least Pfizer sees the writing on the wall, what with 10,000 layoffs and everything.
Posted Aug 29th 2007 4:35PM by Joseph Lazzaro (RSS feed)
Filed under: International markets, Earnings reports, Forecasts, Indices, Economic data, DJIA, Housing
In the Concrete Canyon that is the financial capital of the world, there are data points, and then there are data points.
Thursday's docket offers a "data point of significance" when Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) reports Q2 results. As one of two public, government-sponsored agencies formed to promote home ownership by increasing the availability of mortgage funds, any Freddie Mac report would be noticed by economists, analysts and traders alike, but this quarter's report takes on added import in light of recent subprime mortgage and mortgage-backed asset defaults that have roiled the stock and credit markets in the world's major developed economies and produced a credit crunch.
Moreover, the defaults were a major factor in the Dow Jones Industrial Average's more than 10% retreat from its +14,000-level high earlier this summer and the concomitant housing sector's slowdown that may cause the U.S. economy to slip from projected, below-trend GDP growth into a recession.
Among other FRE metrics, on Thursday Wall Street analysts will pay very close attention to portfolio and credit guarantee income, and the overall quality of its retained portfolio. FRE is expected to post a decline in Q2 2007 earnings per share, to 81 cents from $1.13 in Q2 2006, according to the Reuters consensus estimate. Freddie Mac's shares were down 57 cents to $60.63 in Wednesday afternoon trading.
Still, just as significant, and perhaps more so, will be Freddie Mac's statement and conference call comments: Wall Street will scrutinize any comments FRE may have on the scope of subprime charge-offs and defaults, overall mortgage credit quality (including delinquency rates), housing market conditions, and any comments FRE may have on its retained portfolio.
The aforementioned operational statistics would be noteworthy in a typical market. But in a market that's now diligently (if belatedly) collecting and analyzing subprime and credit information in order to get a comprehensive picture of the scope of subprime defaults and overall mortgage market conditions, Freddie Mac's Q2 report Thursday is, without question, a data point of the most pertinent sort.
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