ATT, Xerox, Ford, Starbucks, BOJ, Societe Out of Control
Overnight... Hang Seng -2.3%; Nikkei 225 +2.1%; FTSE +4.8%; CAC +6%; DAX +5.9%
Ma bell phone home...
AT&T, #1 U.S. phone service provider, profit increased 62%, sales doubled to $30.3 billion, but fell short of projections, shares down 14% this year, -2.2% today.
Copy That... Xerox beat the number, CEO Anne Mulcahy:
"We saw a little bit of a slowdown in some of the corporate environment, but on the other side we are really pleased with our services signing, which full year grew 18%.
Our services contracts offer ways for clients to reduce expenses, which quite frankly plays well to a weakening economy."
Fallen Ford... Ford Motor #3 US Car Maker, posted a sharply narrower Q4 loss of $2.75 billion,
after cutting costs but forecast a net loss for the full year 2008. Ford Motor Credit, said net income dropped 33%.
Ford is offering buyouts to all 54,000 of its employees represented by the UAW and cut its work force by 32,800 employees in 2007.
Java Short... Starbucks, the inventors of $4 coffee,
are testing a $1 (8 oz) cup and free refills for traditional brewed coffee in the Seattle area. The 8 oz short would normally sell for about $1.50.
Land of the Rising Sun... This week the BOJ left rates unchanged at 0.5%.
Fukui is in a pickle, to raise or lower, that is the question. Ben Levett, at 4Cast Ltd:
"Just as Japan found itself the fortunate beneficiary of the global growth and liquidity bull run, so things are now turning sour as the virtuous cycle turns vicious.
Japan has the potential to see some very negative asset deflation developments kick into gear if the latest significant breaks become entrenched."
Societe Out of control... Societe Generale SA #2 French Bank,
said unauthorized bets on stock index futures by a rogue trader caused a $7.2 billion trading loss, the largest in banking history.
Societe Generale said it's taking 1.1 billion euros of writedowns linked to the U.S. residential real estate market,
550 million euros related to U.S. bond insurers, and 400 million euros on other unspecified risks.
Societe Generale plans to raise 5.5 billion euros from shareholders after the loss and subprime related writedowns depleted capital.
The trading loss wipes out almost two years of pretax profit at Societe Generale's investment-banking unit,
and raises the bank's Tier 1 ratio, a measure of solvency, to about 8% from 6.7% at the end of 2007.
Ma bell phone home...
AT&T, #1 U.S. phone service provider, profit increased 62%, sales doubled to $30.3 billion, but fell short of projections, shares down 14% this year, -2.2% today.
Copy That... Xerox beat the number, CEO Anne Mulcahy:
"We saw a little bit of a slowdown in some of the corporate environment, but on the other side we are really pleased with our services signing, which full year grew 18%.
Our services contracts offer ways for clients to reduce expenses, which quite frankly plays well to a weakening economy."
Fallen Ford... Ford Motor #3 US Car Maker, posted a sharply narrower Q4 loss of $2.75 billion,
after cutting costs but forecast a net loss for the full year 2008. Ford Motor Credit, said net income dropped 33%.
Ford is offering buyouts to all 54,000 of its employees represented by the UAW and cut its work force by 32,800 employees in 2007.
Java Short... Starbucks, the inventors of $4 coffee,
are testing a $1 (8 oz) cup and free refills for traditional brewed coffee in the Seattle area. The 8 oz short would normally sell for about $1.50.
Land of the Rising Sun... This week the BOJ left rates unchanged at 0.5%.
Fukui is in a pickle, to raise or lower, that is the question. Ben Levett, at 4Cast Ltd:
"Just as Japan found itself the fortunate beneficiary of the global growth and liquidity bull run, so things are now turning sour as the virtuous cycle turns vicious.
Japan has the potential to see some very negative asset deflation developments kick into gear if the latest significant breaks become entrenched."
Societe Out of control... Societe Generale SA #2 French Bank,
said unauthorized bets on stock index futures by a rogue trader caused a $7.2 billion trading loss, the largest in banking history.
Societe Generale said it's taking 1.1 billion euros of writedowns linked to the U.S. residential real estate market,
550 million euros related to U.S. bond insurers, and 400 million euros on other unspecified risks.
Societe Generale plans to raise 5.5 billion euros from shareholders after the loss and subprime related writedowns depleted capital.
The trading loss wipes out almost two years of pretax profit at Societe Generale's investment-banking unit,
and raises the bank's Tier 1 ratio, a measure of solvency, to about 8% from 6.7% at the end of 2007.
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