Local companies hard pressed to keep up in profit department.SOME of L.A.'s largest companies will have a hard time keeping up with the strong earnings gains estimated for S&P 500 companies in the just-ended third quarter. For the three months ended Sept. 30, corporate profits nationwide rose at their fastest pace in three years, with energy, technology and financial services The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please [ improve this article] or discuss the issue on the talk page. companies posting the strongest gains, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Thomson Financial Thomson Financial A major provider of information, analytical tools, and consulting services to the financial community. The firm, a division of Thomson Corporation, is best known to investors for its First Call segment, which publishes consensus earnings , which compiles analysts' earnings forecasts. The projected 16 percent rise in earnings would be the best third-quarter performance since 2000, when S&P 500 earnings rose 18 percent. Higher productivity, further job cuts, increased consumer spending Consumer demand or consumption is also known as personal consumption expenditure. It is the largest part of aggregate demand or effective demand at the macroeconomic level. and easy comparisons with dismal profits in the year-ago quarter all contributed to a big improvement in the July-September period, according to Thomson Financial. Occidental Petroleum Occidental Petroleum Corporation ("Oxy") NYSE: OXY is an international oil and gas exploration and production company with operations in the United States, Middle East/North Africa and Latin America regions. Corp. is expected to report a 12.6 percent increase in third-quarter earnings per share to 98 cents versus 87 cents in the year-ago quarter. The L.A.-based energy company is scheduled to report third-quarter earnings on Oct. 21. At toy maker Mattel Inc., analysts tracked by Thomson Financial expect a 3.4 percent increase in earnings per share to 60 cents in the third quarter. Mattel is scheduled to report earnings on Oct. 16. KB Home, one of the nation's largest homebuilders, is expected to post a profit rise of 5.8 percent, to $3.09 a share, in its fourth quarter ending Nov. 30. Earnings at energy utility Edison International Edison International (NYSE: EIX) is a public utility holding company based in Rosemead, California. Its subsidiaries include Southern California Edison, and un-regulated non-utility assets Edison Mission Energy, a power producer, and Edison Capital. are expected to fail to $1.05 a share in the third quarter from $1.08 in the year-ago period. L.A.-based companies could benefit from an improving nationwide profit outlook in the fourth quarter. Thomson Financial expects fourth-quarter profits to jump 21.5 percent among S&P 500 companies, with strength coming from financials, technology and basic materials stocks. Amgen Action Heavy option trading could take the wind out of Amgen Inc. The Thousand Oaks-based drug maker has seen its shares, which closed at $66.28 on Oct. 1, jump 48 percent in the past year. Brisk trading in Amgen put contracts last week, at a $65 strike price, mean that options players are skeptical the company can sustain its performance, according to Schaeffer's Investment Research, which conducts technical analysis on stock trends. (The holder of a put onion has the right to sell the stock to a counter party at a set price in the future; a call represents the right to buy at a set future price.) Schaeffer's also noted that short selling Short Selling The selling of a security that the seller does not own, or any sale that is completed by the delivery of a security borrowed by the seller. Short sellers assume that they will be able to buy the stock at a lower amount than the price at which they sold short. of Amgen stock has been running at high volumes. Schaeffer's expects option-related resistance to impede the stock's upward movement if it approaches the $70 a share level, but on the other hand, technical support will slow any decline below $65.--Kate Berry Dealmakers Boutique investment bank Kerlin Capital Group beat out three competitors to advise Covina-based Lereta Corp., a tax services and flood hazard determination company, in its sale last week for $210 million to title insurer LandAmerica Financial Group LandAmerica Financial Group, Inc. (NYSE: LFG) is the third largest title insurance group in the US. It was incorporated in 1991 and is headquartered in Glen Allen, Virginia. Inc., of Richmond, Va. Veteran Los Angeles investment banker Investment Banker A person representing a financial institution that is in the business of raising capital for corporations and municipalities. Notes: An investment banker may not accept deposits or make commercial loans. William Doyle formed six-person Kerlin in 1994. Lereta began looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. a strategic buyer in March. "We felt the price was just outstanding," said Dale Quarto quar·to n. pl. quar·tos 1. The page size obtained by folding a whole sheet into four leaves. 2. A book composed of pages of this size. , Lereta's chief executive. Lereta will not have to lay off any of its 1,000 employees, including 700 in Los Angeles, because LandAmerica did not have Lereta's products as a part of the bundled services it sells to the mortgage industry. Kerlin also recently completed a $75 million private placement for Aecom Technology Corp., an employee-owned engineering services firm in Los Angeles with $2 billion in sales. Aecom aborted an initial public offering in 2002. JPMorgan Partners and Weston Presidio Capital, a private equity firm in San Francisco, made the private placement.--Kate Berry |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion