Interview: G.E.
Nasdaq --- Robert (slow)
>> in world news, iraq’s interim president says this sunday’s elections will be the first step towards a pullout of u.s. forces. president iyad allawi says the withdrawal of u.s.-led troops will take place in stages over an unspecified period of time. and he says the removal of all u.s. forces will depend on the ability of the iraqi security forces to destroy terrorist cells throughout the country. allawi’s comments come amid fresh violence in iraq. the associated press says 11 policemen were killed in baghdad. the a.p. says in one incident, fighting erupted when iraqi police fired on insurgents handing out leaflets warning people not to vote in sunday’s elections. in the united states, senate democrats are using the nomination of condoleezza rice as secretary of state to blast the bush administration’s iraq war policy. senator edwards kennedy says rice failed to acknowledge mistakes in planning and carrying out the iraq war.
>> had dr. rice and others in the administration shared all the information, it might have changed the course of history. we might have discovereded that there were no weapons of mass destruction. the rush to war might have been stopped. we would have stayed focused on the real threat, kept faith with our allies and would be safer today.
>> senate majority leader bill frist defendsed rice, saying the nation needs a leader of her caliber. the senate will vote tomorrow on rise’s nomination and her confirmation is not in doubt. the u.s. scraps plans to spray opium crops in afghanistan after oppositions from the country’s president. afghanistan is the world’s largest producer of the raw ingredient for heroin. the associated press quotes the state department’s top anti-drug official as saying president hamid karzai wants to try alternate approaches to reduce cultivation. afghan officials say their efforts are already making progress and estimates this year’s crop will fall between 30% 2070%. disney’s movie “the aviator” tops the number of nominations for this year’s oscars. the biography of howard hughes has been put forward in 11 categories. the movie’s makers, disney, are the leading studio with 24 nominations. disney’s “finding neverland” got seven, including best picture. the other nominees are time warner’s “million dollar baby,” general electric’s “ray” and news corp’s “sideways “. and in india, national thermal power says net income rose 67% ensuring demand for the country’s biggest producer producer. shobi pereira has more.
>> good morning. national thermal actually becomes the fourth indian company, cathy to earn more than 10 billion rupees in the quarter and it gets the money it needs to invest and make up for the reduction in the return on assets assured by the government. now a fund manager with a.s.k. raymond jameses in mumbai says that the robust earnings puts the company on a stronger footing to add new capacity and enter new businesses, including trading and power distribution. now last april, the government lowered the rate of return state-run generators run on fixed assets. now the cut followed a decline in india’s benchmark interest rates to a 31-year low. according to a survey by ibes, a units of thomson financial, a lower rate of return will slow nationaler this ma’am’s earnings per share growth this year. cathy?
>> and if demand is the reason that’s going to help companies like national thermal?
>> that’s right, cathy. national thermal may boost sales. they’re helped out, as you point out, by rising demand and rising out put at factories owned by companies. industrial production in india is growing at an 8.4% clip, and that is one-third faster than a year ago. now the prime minister says to keep pace with this growth, india needs to spend $75 billion in five years, building new plants and upgradesing aging lines to curb blackouts. now one analyst of sahara asset management says given scale of investments planned by the government to plug the energy shortage, the company and industry leader will benefit the most. now in terms of scale, just looking at national thermal, it is the world’s sixth bigest thermal pow producer and the state boards in turn generate 60% of india’s power. now the analyst saying no other utility in yainl has the scale or resources of national thermal. better leave it on that note. back to you, cathy.
>> thank you for that, shobi. still to come, sony’s already warned investors its profits will be below previous expectations. is that a dangerous sign or a buying opportunity? we’ll ask a fund manager from overseas about $600 million in international stocks including sony, whether he’s buying, selling or holding. we’ll be right back.
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Listen Market briefing --- Matt (slow)
NYSE --- Julie (slow)
Earnings report --- Su (fast)
Powell's decision --- Peter (fast)
revenue surges to its highest level in nine years as demand for handsets during the holidays boosted sales. the dow has its biggest rally of the year as u.s. stocks rise for the first day in five. earnings from johnson & johnson and dupont beat forecasts and consumer confidence rose more than expected. consumer confidences encouraged investors to buy the dollar. that helps the u.s. currency to rise the most in three weeks against the yen and gain versus the euro. three companies in the dow jones industrial average report lower profits. johnson & johnson said fourth quarter net income fell 34% to $1.2 billion because of tax costs. merck’s fourth quarter net income fell 21% to $1.1 billion, this after the drugmaker set aside more than $600 million to cover legal costs associated with the withdrawal of its painkiller, vioxx. the dupont’s fourth quarter net income 52% from a year ago when a tax gain boosted earnings. shares of johnson & johnson and merck rose more than 3.5%, dupont gained more than 1%. stocks rallied after four days of declines, lead by drug and transport shares. looking at how the index is closed, the s&p 500 rallied .4%, the dow jones closed up .9% and the nasdaq up more than half a percent. bloomberg’s julie hyman reports from the new york stock exchange.
>> the dow had its biggest gain since december 21 in today’s session. so, a good rally for both the dow and the s&p. although if you look at the chart of the day, you’ll see we had this typical sell-off in the last hour or so of trading. in fact, as you look at the last 15 sessions and nouse 16 sessions of 2005, 11 of those 16 are now―now 12 of those 16 and counting in today’s session, we’ve seen stocks close closer to their lows of the day than their highs of the day. we have seen this typical sell-off in the last hour of trading and in talking to traders today, they say that is due in part to the fact that we’re seeing lower fund flows in the market this month. so, the presence of fund manager, some of whom tend to sell their stocks in the last half hour of trading is being felt more heavily. we also had a lot of fundamental news helping stocks in today’s session. we had a consumer confidence number better than expected and also earnings that came in and beat estimates in many cases. pharmaceutical stocks helping lead the pack in today’s session, although it was a broad-based rally. but that particular group helped in part by johnson & johnson and merck. of course, johnson & johnson much more than a drugmaker, also medical device maker, for instance. both companies beating estimates. merck beating estimates on the sales front, although profit at both companies did decline, came in for johnson & johnson ahead of what analysts had been looking for. also transportation, the other big winner in today’s session. this has been a loser for year to date, down about 6% as a group. today it was up 2%, helped by a couple of different subsets of transportation stocks. on the one hand, railroads stocks doing well, saying santa fe northern came in ahead of analyst estimates and other railroad stocks did well also in today’s session. union pacific had disappointing earnings yesterday and airlines rebounding. they’ve had about a 25% drop this year. but air-tran came out with earnings today that beat estimates. continental added to the focus list at j.p. morgan. that also helped matters within that particular group. i’m jew lie hyman, bloomberg news at the new york stock exchange.
>> flextronics says profit more than quadrupled in the most recent quarter. sales increased 3% to $4.28 billion. flextronics is the world’s largest maker of electronics that are sold under other company brand names benefiting from increased demand for phones and printers from companies like sony ericsson and hewlett-packard. it has been transferring manufacturing from smaller factories to seven larger cities to cut costs. still, the company’s u.s.-listed shares are down 30% in the past year. new zealand stocks rise led by telecom corp. investors speculating the nation’s biggest phone company boosted second quarter earnings. more to ron madison for more on that and a check at what else might move around the region today.
>> about an hour and a half into new zealand’s trading day. higher by half a percent. it is telecom new zealand rising today up by 1.1%. as you mentioned, expectations at the nation’s biggest phone company boosted second quarter earnings. we’ll find out more about that, though, when the company does report earnings on february 4. meantime, though, that stock is up ahead of that. pretty limited day of trading so far in the region and it will be today with australia off, celebrating australia day today. let’s move on and see what happened in the u.s. overnight with regardses to asian traded shares. the bank of new york asia a.d.r. index pretty much down overall by about quarter of a percent. china coming out the big gainer. you can see they’re up by 2%. the bank of new york taiwan index also up by 1.7%. china rising after it came out with g.d.p. figures showing the economy grew 9.5% in the second quarter. got shares of aluminum corp were up in u.s. trading up by 2.5%. also some of the hong kong-listed shares including china mobile up by more than 3.5%. our 3.3% in the u.s. also chip shares, we saw those advancing in the u.s. after texas instruments came out with its earnings after the end of regular trading and those earnings did beat analyst estimates, helping to push a.d.r.’s of taiwan semiconductor higher. that company does count texas instruments as one of its clients. taiwan semiconductor higher by 1.7%. well, japan’s a.d.r.’s did finish mostly lower led by nomura. it reported its brokerage commission slumped to 46.3 billion yen. seeing nomura holdings down 1.25% in the u.s. japan does get started in about an hour and a half. one stock we’ll be watching today is mitsubishi motors. one newspaper saying on its website that japan’s only unprofitable car maker may report a record loss of more than 4.3 billion in the current business year through march 31, more than double the company’s forecast. cathy, we’ll be watching that today throughout the day. back to you for now.
>> i’ll see you later. thank you, ron. up next, india’s biggest power producer says third quarter net income rose almost 70%. details on national thermal earnings come after the break. stay with us.
