Wall Street Addict

Google Inc.'s third-quarter profit soared 46 percent to hurdle the enormous expectations that have elevated the Internet search leader's stock price by more $100 during the past month.
The Mountain View-based company said Thursday that it earned $1.07 billion, or $3.38 per share, for the three months ended in September, up from net income of $733.4 million, or $2.36 per share, at the same time last year.
If not for the cost of awarding stock to its steadily expanding work force, Google said it would have earned $3.91 per share. That topped the average estimate of $3.78 per share among analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.
Revenue for the period totaled $4.23 billion, a 57 percent increase from $2.67 billion last year.
After subtracting commissions paid to its thousands of advertising partners, Google's revenue stood at $3.01 billion -- about $70 million above the average analyst estimate.
The performance represented a return to form for Google after its second-quarter earnings disappointed Wall Street. The company has surpassed analyst estimates in all but two of the 13 quarters since its August 2004 initial public offering.
Published by AP

Labels: Earnings, GOOG, Hot Stocks

Fannie Mae, the largest U.S. buyer and guarantor of home mortgages, reported Thursday that its profit dropped more than 35 percent last year on lower interest income and the cost of accounting revisions.
The government-sponsored company, which finances or guarantees one of every five home loans in the United States, said it earned $4.1 billion, or $3.65 a share in 2006, down from $6.3 billion, or $6.01 a share, in 2005 and $5 billion, or $4.94 a share, in 2004.
The decline in profit in 2006 was expected, mainly because of reductions in interest income and ballooning costs from Fannie Mae's reworking of its accounting following a $6.3 billion scandal that came to light in September 2004.
The company has said that volatility in earnings is expected to continue from quarter to quarter amid changes in interest rates.
Its shares opened up 60 cents at $62.05 on Thursday.

Labels: Earnings, FNM, Home Mortgages

Stocks rose on Monday, as optimism about earnings and M&A activity in the industrial sector countered the worries about worsening credit conditions that led to a global equity sell-off last week.
Expectations for quarterly earnings growth by Standard & Poor's 500 companies were raised to 6.8 percent compared with the year-ago period from 6.0 percent one week earlier, according to Reuters Estimates.
Shares of industrial companies gained after Ingersoll-Rand Co. Ltd. (NYSE:IR - News) said it planned to sell its Bobcat machinery business and two other units to South Korea's Doosan Infracore.
Ingersoll-Rand shares rose 6.6 percent to $51.37, while the S&P industrials index (^GSPI - News) rose 1.4 percent.
But that deal aside, there was a lack of the typical flurry of takeover and buyout announcements seen on many Mondays this past year. Tightening lending standards are threatening to slow or halt the pace of corporate buyouts, including several by private equity firms, which have fueled a rally in stocks.
Source: Reuters

Labels: Earnings, IR, Wall Street