BUSINESS NOTES ANALYST TOUTING WELLPOINT FUTURE.THOUSAND OAKS Thousand Oaks, residential city (1990 pop. 104,352), Ventura co., S Calif., in a farm area; inc. 1964. Avocados, citrus, vegetables, strawberries, and nursery products are grown. - Lehman Brothers Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (NYSE: LEH), founded in 1850, is a diversified, global financial services firm. It is a participant in investment banking, equity and fixed income sales, research and trading, investment management, private equity, and private banking. analyst Larry Marsh on Thursday raised his earnings estimate for WellPoint Health Networks Inc. after the managed-care company beat analyst expectations by 24 percent. The Thousand Oaks-based company earned $1.38 per share in the third quarter of 2000, compared with $1.11 for the same period a year ago, and well ahead of the $1.28 Marsh expected. Marsh said after WellPoint's outstanding quarter, he was raising earnings estimates for the year to $5.25 from $5.15, and from $5.95 to $6.05 for 2001. Additionally, he said he was maintaining his price target of $120, which represents some 20 times the new $6.05 estimate for next year. Shares of WellPoint gained $5.44, or 5.20 percent, to close Thursday at $109.94 on heavy volume of 1,789,900 shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) World's largest marketplace for securities. The exchange began as an informal meeting of 24 men in 1792 on what is now Wall Street in New York City. . - Daily News DaimlerChrysler earnings sputter DETROIT - A tough U.S. market and the extreme steps taken by the Chrysler arm of DaimlerChrysler AG to stay competitive pushed the automaker's adjusted earnings down 78 percent in the third quarter, company officials said Thursday. The decline came from a $512 million loss at Chrysler, its first operating loss operating loss The excess of operating expenses over revenue. As with operating income, operating losses exclude revenues and expenses from operations that are not considered a regular part of the business. Also called deficit. Compare operating income. in nine years, as the company increased incentives by $900 million in the quarter and launched new versions of its minivans at three factories. Officials said Thursday that their financial results should improve for the fourth quarter and promised a round of cost cuts at every level. But they also warned that the outlook for next year appeared mixed at best. - Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. Music, films lead Sony profits lower TOKYO - Sony Corp.'s profit skidded 57.4 percent in its second fiscal quarter as weakness in music, movies and video games See video game console. offset strong results from its electronics business. The electronic hardware and entertainment conglomerate said Thursday it earned $184 million in the three months ended Sept. 30, down from 46.52 billion yen the previous year. Sales for the quarter rose 3.8 percent to $15.69 billion from a year earlier. - Associated Press Napster making music with Macs REDWOOD CITY - Legally troubled Napster Inc. set its sites on Apple computer users, making its popular music swapping software available for Macintosh operating systems. The company announced Napster for the Mac on Wednesday, and the program was available to be downloaded from Napster's Web site. Despite making inroads inroads Noun, pl make inroads into to start affecting or reducing: my gambling has made great inroads into my savings inroads npl to make inroads into [+ to new users, Napster is still embroiled em·broil tr.v. em·broiled, em·broil·ing, em·broils 1. To involve in argument, contention, or hostile actions: "Avoid . . . in a copyright infringement lawsuit brought against it by members of the Recording Industry Association of America. Napster claims 32 million users of its software and the music-sharing phenomenon shows no signs of slowing, despite the legal battles. - Associated Press Investors of Vinik set for big payout BOSTON - Vinik Asset Management, the $4.2 billion hedge fund hedge fund, in finance, a highly speculative, largely unregulated investment device. Originating in the 1950s, the funds "hedge" by offsetting "short" positions (borrowing a security and then selling it at a higher price before repaying the lender) against "long" headed by Jeffrey Vinik, announced Thursday it would return its investors' money after a four-year run in which their money grew fivefold fivefold Adjective 1. having five times as many or as much 2. composed of five parts Adverb by five times as many or as much Adj. 1. . - Associated Press Andersen's now called Accenture CHICAGO - The world's largest consulting firm has a new name: Accenture. Andersen Consulting announced the name Thursday after a three-month selection process, saying the coined word emphasizes putting an accent on the future, as it tries to do for its clients. But the planned Jan. 1 switch to Accenture (rhymes with ``adventure'') wasn't the company's initiative. Giving up the name it has had since its 1989 founding was part of the steep price it had to pay for its freedom from parent Andersen Worldwide, granted Aug. 7 by an international arbitrator. - Associated Press |
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