On Tuesday Aetna Inc. lifted its 2010 earnings forecast a second time after the firm reported milder-than-expected flu season. The good news about flu this year tacked one more positive in an earnings season that has been dominated by profit results and increasingly positive projections.
The firm now projects that their operating earnings may reach [...]

Earnings for members of the Standard & Poor’s 500 are expected to increase another 27% from a year earlier and their associated revenues are seen to also rise — perhaps another 9%, said Thomson Reuters last week. Actual earnings season for Q2, begins shortly…
In the first quarter of 2010, S&P 500 firms’ earnings increased [...]

One of my good friends who runs a small investment boutique pointed me towards today’s chart of the day from Bloomberg showing the flight phoenix of US corporates’ profit margins.

I know that the chart is difficult to read but you only really need to look at the trend and thus the fact that profit margins [...]

Raghavendra Kamath has an article in the Business Standard on experiments by Indian retailers at running stores for 24 hours a day.
I have often wondered about the costs and benefits of the 24-hour stores that one sees in the US. Two things come to mind. First, the response of demand to extended hours will only [...]

The entire system around which daily life is organized in the United States, undergirded by the Federal Reserve Note dollar, is crumbling. Both long-term trends and externalities, like the BP mess, are natural and predictable consequences. Inertia is such a strong force that the avoidable often becomes, in the macro, unavoidable. But individually you can [...]

Back in July 2009, Intel asserted that the young recovery of 2009 would be anything but lackluster.
On Tuesday, the leaders of the chip giant re-asserted their claims for 2010 and beyond.
Paul Otellini, Intel’s CEO, told analysts that its earnings per share and revenue should grow at an average annual rate in the “low double-digits” over [...]

All last week we pointed to the strong earnings numbers released by U.S. corporations. The overall results are in and point to a measure that confirms our sector by sector reports.
Expected growth in first-quarter earnings for companies in the S&P 500 index has now jumped to 50% from 39% in the prior week according [...]

Q1 2010 earnings season is in full swing and businesses continue their flurry of better than expected reports to start the new year.
Bank sector earnings continued strong with Morgan Stanley reporting strong profits.  The New York-based  investment firm posted a first-quarter profit of $1.78 billion compared with a loss of $177 million a [...]

Deposits, software and toys all proved profitable according to the bellwethers in each industry on Monday… and a very positive earnings season surged forward.
CitiGroup(C) posted a profit that more than doubled. With earnings of $4.4 billion, C posted its best showing in over a year. Top executives said that the bank that everyone has [...]

Savvy telecom startup Wind is hiring Canadian talent while its rivals cower.
Telecom service provider Wind Mobile slipped into Canada’s wireless scene determined to gain every strategic advantage it could over the country’s telecommunications giants.
Last year — mostly through online social networking sites – Wind spread the word that it was hiring. Within a year, the [...]