Shares of toy maker Mattel (NYSE: MAT) are soaring in premarket trading today, after the company announced better-than-expected numbers for its second quarter.

At first glance, the numbers don't look too hot for Mattel. The company announced that profit was off by a pretty hefty 48% in the quarter, down to 3 cents per share on $11.8 million. This is down from $22.8 million, or 6 cents per share, for the same period last year. The company blamed most of the decline in weak demand for its Barbie dolls, and higher costs that it had to endure in the quarter.

From the above paragraph, you may be expecting to see the company being punished in the premarket, but in fact, shares of the stock are trading up a blazing 13.5% as I write this, and were up over 18% as of about 5 minutes ago. Why? Simple, in Wall Street it is all about expectations, and the company was able to outperform analysts estimates for the quarter, which were looking to see only a 2 cent per share report.

Shares of tire maker Goodyear Tire and Rubber (NYSE: GT) are trading up nicely in the premarket after the Akron, Ohio based company posted a profit of 60 cents a share for its first quarter, easily surpassing analyst estimates.

During its first quarter last year, the company posted a $174 million dollar loss, or -94 cents a share, and going into today's earnings report Wall Street had been looking to see the company show Q1 earnings of 47 cents. So with the actual numbers, Goodyear is looking for a good day in today's action. Excluding one-time items, the company stated that it had earned 67 cents per share.

Currently the stock has moved up 4.5% in premarket trading following its earnings release.

American auto maker Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) reported its first quarter earnings this morning, and surprised Wall Street by posting a profit during the quarter.

Going into today's earnings announcement, analysts had been expecting the company to show a loss of 16 cents per share, but the nation's second largest auto maker surprised everyone by earning $100 million, or 5 cents per share, during the quarter. This is a nice rebound from the same period last year when the struggling auto maker had a loss of $282 million, or 15 cents a share.

The good news is that the company had a great performance in its European and South American markets. The bad news is that car and truck sales slumped once again in the weak U.S. market, hurt by the current economic slowdown.

There is a lot of talk swirling around Wall Street about the current economic slowdown, and just how hard it is going to hit businesses in the months ahead. But so for fast food giant McDonald's (NYSE: MCD), 2008 is looking pretty rosy.

After ending 2007 with a disappointing decline in same store sales, McDonald's has now shown two straight months of sales growth following today's announcement that it had a pretty impressive 11.7% jump in same-store sales during the month of February.

Its American sales saw an increase of 8.3%, while-same stores sales in Europe really took off, showing a jump of an amazing 15.4%. Last month, the company reported that January same-store sales rose by 5.7%.

Shares of Tiffany and Co. (NYSE: TIF) are trading up 4.6% in the premarket following this morning's third quarter earnings release.

The company reported earnings of 71 cents per share. As I had discussed last night in my earnings preview, analysts had only been expecting to see the jewelry and luxury goods retailer show earnings of 25 cents per share. Included in the company's figures were 48 cents per share related to the sale-leaseback of the company's Tokyo flagship store. Excluding that, profit was 23 cents.

The company posted an 18% jump in sales during the quarter, helped by 9% increase in same-store sales.

Looking ahead to the company's full year numbers, Tiffany boosted its outlook from $2.22 to $2.27 per share upwards to a range of $2.25 to $2.30 per share.

Shares are currently trading up $2.25 to $51.00.

[photo : hazydz]

Eliza Popescu is a financial writer for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer.

Manufacturers of Sirius Radio (SIRI) receivers that previously had to stop production of several models because of signal emissions the violated FCC standards have resumed production of two models, the company said yesterday. The models were designed to allow users the capability to use receive FM radio as well as receiving the subscriber programming offered by Sirius. This brings over 90% of Sirius radio models back into production. XM has its own ongoing FCC concerns, noted below.

The news was met indifferently by investors and in late afternoon the stock is landing where it finished yesterday -- at $3.77 a share.
Michael Canfield is a private investor, a business and media writer, living in Seattle. He doesn't own stock in XM or Sirius.