Top Line in its Fiscal Second Quarter Electronic Arts Grows

Video game publisher Electronic Arts Inc <EA.O> raised its 2015 forecast and reported stronger-than-expected second-quarter results on Tuesday, on cost controls and strong digital sales from titles including "FIFA" and "Madden."

The Redwood City, California-based company said it expects $4.18 billion in non-GAAP revenue and non-GAAP net income of $2.05 per share in fiscal 2015. It had previously forecast $4.1 billion in revenue and $1.85 per share in profit.

Electronic Arts is seeing "continued growth of generation 4 console (Xbox One and PlayStation 4) and still solid results in our older console business as well," Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen said in an interview.

"The digital side of the business, full-game downloads as well as digital services around those businesses like 'FIFA Ultimate Team' and 'Madden Ultimate Team' are continuing to perform well above our expectations."

For the three months ended Sept. 30, the company posted non-GAAP revenue of $1.22 billion, compared with $1.04 billion a year ago. Wall Street analysts had estimated revenue of $1.16 billion, according to Thomson-Reuters I/B/E/S.

Non-GAAP net income rose to $232 million, or 73 cents per share, from $105 million or 33 cents per share a year ago. Analysts had forecast earnings of 53 cents per share.

Electronic Arts shares were up 2 percent in after-hours trading, after closing at $37.48 on the Nasdaq.

Increased Costs, Facebook Down on Slowed User Growth

Social media giant Facebook (FB) revealed third quarter earnings after the bell on Tuesday.

The company posted $3.2 billion in revenue, compared to estimates of $3.12 billion. Earnings per share came in at 43 cents, versus estimates of 40 cents.

Yet the stock ticked lower after hours, as the pace of user growth slowed. Monthly active users grew 2.3% to 1.35 billion, but that’s slower than the growth of 3.1% seen the previous quarter. Facebook now has 864 million daily active users and 703 million mobile daily active users.

Shares slid further, plummeting more than 9% following guidance announced during the earnings call. Facebook says it plans to dramatically increase its spending in 2015, somewhere between a 55% and 75% increase.

"This has been a good quarter with strong results," Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO, said in a statement. "We continue to focus on serving our community well and continue to invest in connecting the world over the next decade."

Facebook also revealed the financials of WhatsApp, the mobile messaging service it purchased for $19 billion earlier this year. It turns out the service only had revenue of $10 million last year and had losses totaling $138 million.

Facebook shares are up 48% this year, in part due to strong growth in mobile. The stock closed Tuesday at $80.77, with a market cap of $208 billion.

Despite lukewarm user growth, some investors cite strong financial results and remain bullish going forward. “Facebook has become one of the absolute best stocks to purchase. It’s what Google was in its early days, 

Follow Katie Roof on Twitter @Katie_Roof

Business Report U.S. Home Prices Rise Less-than-Expected in August: S&P/Case Shiller

U.S. single-family home prices rose in August on a year-over-year basis but fell short of expectations, a closely watched survey said on Tuesday.

The S&P/Case Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas gained 5.6 percent in August over last year, the slowest year-on-year increase since November 2012, slightly below a Reuters poll of economists that forecast a gain of 5.8 percent.

On a seasonally adjusted monthly basis, prices in the 20 cities dipped 0.1 percent for the month. A Reuters poll of economists had forecast an increase of 0.1 percent.

Non-seasonally adjusted prices rose 0.2 percent in the 20 cities on a monthly basis, disappointing expectations for a 0.5 percent rise.

"The deceleration in home prices continues," David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in a statement.

"Despite the weaker year-over-year numbers, home prices are still showing an overall increase, as the National Index increased for its eighth consecutive month."

A broader measure of national housing market activity that S&P/Case-Shiller is now releasing on a monthly basis rose at a slower pace year over year, coming in at 5.1 percent.

The seasonally adjusted 10-city gauge fell 0.2 percent in August versus a 0.5 percent decline in July, while the non-adjusted 10-city index rose 0.2 percent in August compared to a 0.6 percent rise in July.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli)

World Business News Dollar’s Ride Is About To End

World Business News Dollar’s Ride Is About To End, the nation of Japan has become a global leader in debt, currency devaluation and inflation.  Unfortunately for the Japanese, Abenomics is also leading Japan into a hyper inflationary depression, as the first of his three arrows has shot right through the yen and put a gaping hole in the wallets of every Japanese citizen. 

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) has placed all its chips on the bet that inflation will cure all the nation’s economic problems. Making deflation public enemy number one is rather convenient when your country's public debt to GDP is the highest in the world. In order to end deflation, the central bank has purchased 70% of all newly-issued Japanese Government Bonds. All this money printing is intended to get prices rising, and it has been very successful. Japan's consumer prices rose 3.1 percent in August from a year earlier.  Prices for fuel, light and water rose 6.4 percent on the year.  But as real wages continue to fall, the bull’s eye appears to be directed on destroying the Japanese middle class.

In the nonsensical world of Abenomics--where inflation is viewed to be the progenitor of growth--the 3.1% CPI reading is deemed to be insufficient. This is because the core rate of 1.1 percent was far shy of the 2% read they are aiming for. So, as expected, there are calls coming from the lobotomized economic experts in Japan for yet more money printing from the BOJ.   

Japan’s “experiment” with Abenomics would be much more interesting if we didn’t already know how it all ends.  This so called experiment of massive debt monetization has already been tried in countries such as Weimar Germany and, more recently, in Zimbabwe; with disastrous results.  The misguided policy of using inflation to create growth is predictably causing asset bubbles in JGBs and stocks. The BOJ is tirelessly printing money to monetize nearly all of the Japanese government’s enormous debt load and also to buy stocks. This has ballooned its equity portfolio alone to be an estimated 7 trillion yen ($63.6 billion).  However, all this has done nothing to boost real GDP, balance trade or boost real wages.  In fact, Industrial production shrank 1.5 percent month-on-month in August and spending among Japanese households fell a steeper-than-expected 4.7 percent. 

Business Report Wall Street Drifts After Last Week's Big Gain

U.S. stocks ended near flat on Monday, pausing after the S&P 500's biggest weekly gain since January 2013, while energy shares fell with another decline in oil prices.

Among the day's biggest positives, shares of Gilead Sciences <GILD.O> rose 1.7 percent to $112.59, a day ahead of its scheduled earnings release. Micron Technology <MU.O> shares jumped 4 percent to $32.30 and was the largest percentage gainer on both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 after it announced a $1 billion stock repurchase.

But energy shares were by far the day's biggest drag, with the S&P 500 energy index <.SPNY> falling 2 percent. U.S. crude oil <CLc1> briefly traded below $80 a barrel after Goldman Sachs slashed its crude price forecasts, citing abundant supply and lackluster demand.

The S&P 500 ended the day down slightly after closing out its best week since early January 2013, a sharp recovery from the market's recent selloff. The index is now up 5.3 percent from its Oct. 15 low.

"After almost a 10 percent correction on the S&P, the bulls showed up and sent the prices right back up. Now... we're on track for closing in the upper half of the range for the month, which is a bullish sign," said Adam Sarhan, chief executive of Sarhan Capital in New York.

Accommodative central bank policies globally should keep "an underlying bid for stocks," he said.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> rose 12.53 points, or 0.07 percent, to 16,817.94, the S&P 500 <.SPX> lost 2.95 points, or 0.15 percent, to 1,961.63 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> added 2.22 points, or 0.05 percent, to 4,485.93.

The majority of companies are beating earnings expectations. With results in from 213 of the S&P 500 companies, 71.4 percent beat analysts' forecasts, which would be highest percentage since the third quarter of 2011, Thomson Reuters data showed.

U.S.-traded shares of Brazilian companies tumbled after President Dilma Rousseff won reelection, defeating market favorite Aecio Neves by a slim margin.

Petrobras ADRs <PBR.N> slumped 13.7 percent to $11.16 and Vale <VALE.N> lost 5.2 percent to $10.58. A Brazilian exchange-traded fund <EWZ.P> dropped 5.4 percent.

After the bell, shares of Twitter <TWTR.N> dropped 9.6 percent to $43.88 after it reported quarterly revenue that surpassed expectations but forecast fourth-quarter sales that may miss targets.

On the S&P 500, the largest decliner was Nabors Industries <NBR.N>, down 6.7 percent to $17.48. On the Nasdaq, the largest decliner was Tesla Motors <TSLA.O>, down 5.8 percent at $221.67.

Declining NYSE issues outnumbered advancers 1,737 to 1,308, for a 1.33-to-1 ratio on the downside; on the Nasdaq, 1,424 issues fell and 1,235 advanced for a 1.15-to-1 ratio.

The benchmark S&P 500 index posted 53 new 52-week highs and one new low; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 45 new highs and 62 new lows.

About 6.1 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, below the 8 billion average this month, according to data from BATS Global Markets.

(By Caroline Valetkevitch; Additional reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Meredith Mazzilli and Nick Zieminski)

http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2014/10/27/wall-street-eases-after-last-week-big-gain-energy-weighs/

Business News Euro Zone at Risk for Recession Relapse: ECB's Draghi

The ECB's president warned divided euro zone leaders on Friday they risked "a relapse into recession" if they failed to press ahead with structural economic reforms, a message welcomed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

With a recovery coming to a halt in the second quarter and depressed prices reflecting near record unemployment, France and Italy want to shift away from the spending cuts that marked the bloc's response to the 2009-2012 crisis.

But Germany says debt discipline must continue and the European Commission, which acts as a budget policeman, has until next Wednesday to reject 2015 budgets that fail to comply with EU fiscal rules.

France and Italy are pushing for more spending room in their budgets in return for new commitments on structural reforms, and officials say that any changes Paris and Rome make to their budgets are likely to be small.

Many economists say nothing short of a large scale U.S.-style bond-buying program will revive the economy that is still suffering a hangover from the debt and banking crisis.

But European Central Bank President Mario Draghi told euro zone leaders seated around a large oval table in the EU summit's red marble building that they could not just rely on the ECB.

"We avoided the collapse of the euro with a joint effort. Now our focus should be to act jointly again to avoid a relapse into a recession," Draghi said, according to his spokesman, who quoted from his speech. "Hope is not a strategy."

He said a coherent plan for economic growth had to involve "concrete and credible" structural reforms.

Laying out a four-pronged strategy, Draghi emphasized that monetary policy was only one part of an economic revival plan, the others being reforms, sound public finances and healing the bloc's sick banks.

DRAGHI'S MIRROR

Draghi said he wanted to see governments draw up a reform program by the next EU summit in December.

That appeared to be welcomed by Merkel, who has faced sustained pressure from France and Italy and to some extent the United States and the International Monetary Fund, to agree to more government spending to help the economy.

Merkel told a news conference following the summit that she thanked Draghi "for holding up a mirror for us once again."

"Monetary policy can do some things, that is the job of the independent European Central Bank," Merkel said.

"But if fiscal policy doesn't react simultaneously, if we don't improve our economic policies, our competitiveness and our investment climate, then we won't come out of this unsatisfactory situation," Merkel said.

The summit underscored how the euro zone has few quick fixes. According to people in the room at the summit, Merkel said that a mix of private investment, fiscal discipline and openness to fast-growing Asian economies was the way forward.

Incoming European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has promised to unveil a 300-billion euro investment plan by Christmas, which is likely to focus on transport and energy.

But such measures could take years to bear fruit, and the United States and the IMF worry that the bloc, which makes up a fifth of the world economy, is a drag on global prosperity.

The debate is complicated by EU rules that seek to keep country's public finances in order and Germany's promise to balance its books next year for the first time since 1969.

GROWTH POTENTIAL

The EU's top economic official renewed calls on Berlin to act, saying that without investment the future was bleak for Europe's biggest economy, even if it is stronger than most.

"All euro area countries have shortages in potential growth, including Germany," said Jyrki Katainen, the European Commissioner who will become the bloc's growth tsar from November, tasked with bringing down near record unemployment and raising investment.

"Germany's potential growth is currently 1.5 (percent). This is far too low," he told reporters.

France, the euro zone's second biggest economy, is particularly in the spotlight after conceding it would fail to meet EU debt limits until 2017, later than initially promised.

French President Francois Hollande told the summit that Europe should not give the impression that there were "good and bad students" and promised in principle to meet EU budget rules, diplomats said.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is proposing tax cuts to get households spending again, as his country is suffering its third recession since 2008.

However, Dutch Premier Mark Rutte, a Merkel ally, said no investors would put their money into the euro zone if public finances were out of control, and said there was a risk of "rapid death" of the currency area if action were not taken.

Outgoing Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso sounded a conciliatory note at the end of the summit, saying budget discussions with France and Italy were to see if there was a "serious deviation" from EU rules, not whether they had simply been met. 

(Additional reporting by Paul Taylor, Alastair Macdonald, Jean-Baptiste Vey and Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels and Noah Barkin and Michelle Martin in Berlin; Editing by Jon Boyle)

http://www.foxbusiness.com/economy-policy/2014/10/24/ecb-draghi-euro-zone-at-risk-for-recession-relapse/?intcmp=fbfeatures

FOMC Meeting and Facebook Earnings good of business report

The Federal Reserve’s policy-setting committee meets next week and investors will once again be looking for clues as to the timing and trajectory of interest rate hikes.

The central bank’s Federal Open Markets Committee meets Tuesday and Wednesday with a policy announcement due at the conclusion of Wednesday’s meeting.

The FOMC is widely expected to wrap up the Fed’s long-running bond purchasing program known as quantitative easing. Since last December the Fed has been gradually scaling back its monthly bond purchases by $10 billion each month. The amount of purchases now stands at $15 billion per month, but Fed policy makers have indicated they will phase out the entire amount at the October meeting.

The next step in a return to normal monetary policy after years of stimulus programs is raising interest rates from their current near-zero range. The big question is whether the Fed next week will alter the language of its statement to eliminate the phrase “for a considerable period,” which has been used to describe how long rates will remain low after quantitative easing ends.

For months the Fed has said rates will remain low “for a considerable period” beyond the end of QE. A number of Fed policy makers have called for eliminating the phrase in order to prepare global markets for the inevitability of higher rates.

Also on the calendar next week is a report on durable goods orders due Tuesday and the release of the final third-quarter GDP figure out Thursday.

Bellwether companies reporting earnings include drug makers Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) and Merck (NYSE: MRK), and tech giant Facebook (FB). Facebook, whose numbers are out Tuesday, will look to duplicate Yahoo!’s (YHOO) stellar quarter reported this week, and avoid the poorer-than-expected results reported by Amazon.com (AMZN).

Coffee retailer Starbucks (SBUX), always a good measure of consumer sentiment in terms of how often consumers are willing to pay as much as $5 for a cup of coffee, reports earnings Thursday.

Follow Dunstan Prial on Twitter @DunstanPrial

Business Report of Markets React Positively as Ebola Fears Lessen

Market fluctuations eased on Friday and the Standard & Poor's 500 index ended its best week in almost two years as fears dwindled that the first Ebola diagnosis in New York could lead to widespread contagion in the nation's financial capital.

The market's favored gauge of anxiety, the CBOE Volatility Index, dropped from readings above 30 on Thursday to about the average daily level at 16.63 on Friday, while options activity suggested low expectations for volatility, signaling that investors no longer assign a high probability to wild shifts based on Ebola news.

To be sure, Ebola fears may still provide a trigger for temporary bouts of selling. The sharp selling in futures and broad-market exchange-traded funds on Thursday suggests a sensitivity that still exists - to a point. And those fears could revive in the event other Ebola sufferers turn up in the U.S., particularly any that can't be attributed to health care workers or people from West Africa.

"Ebola is really center stage as the No. 1 fear of the market right now because of the immediate reaction we've had to it," said John Kosar, director of research with Asbury Research in Chicago. "It's been more immediate and severe than any of the geopolitical tensions we've seen."

After the possible Ebola diagnosis in New York was reported on Thursday, the S&P 500 SPDRs exchange-traded fund traded about 2.56 million shares at 2:56 p.m. -- the busiest minute of the day other than the 4 p.m. close.

But the decline was limited to a move of about 0.6 percentage point, and stocks still ended higher, up 1.2 percent.

At 8:50 p.m. ET (0050 GMT), there was confirmation that Dr. Craig Spencer, 33, had contracted Ebola. S&P futures fell about 13 points in 20 minutes, but did not translate to declines Friday, as the S&P rose 0.7 percent, on its way to a 4.1 percent gain for the week, the best since January 2013.

New York and New Jersey will bolster screening for Ebola beyond federal requirements for travelers from West Africa arriving at the area's airports, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Friday.

Travelers from Ebola-affected countries in West Africa will undergo interviews upon arrival at Newark Liberty International airport and New York's John F. Kennedy International airport and may face quarantine orders, Cuomo said. Newark and JFK are two of the five airports into which travelers from West Africa can fly to the U.S.

Fears that Ebola could spread in the United States escalated after a Liberian man became the first person in the country diagnosed with the virus on Sept. 30. Other cases have followed, and the uncertainty surrounding its possible spread was in part why sudden, late-day selloffs were seen on Oct. 10 and Oct. 13.

Now, however, investors are less concerned about isolated cases of Ebola in major cities among health care workers who work directly with patients. They see the reaction as more of a buying opportunity.

"What moves the market is a surprise or something that's unexpected or unanticipated, so the fact that there's an Ebola case is old news," said Brian Battle, director of trading at Performance Trust Capital Partners in Chicago. "For it to be a real story, it has to be way more contagious than we thought."

Stocks that have been hit hardest by the Ebola diagnoses - including airlines - dipped when the news broke Thursday but bounced back after New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Spencer's diagnosis did not pose a threat to others.

The NYSE ARCA Airline index reached its highest level in a month on Friday. Their rebound last week was a tip-off to Manoj Narang, chief executive of Tradeworx, a proprietary trading firm in Red Bank, New Jersey, that uses quantitative strategies, that the scare had passed its peak.

Many small companies involved in the Ebola response that soared after the first U.S. diagnosis have since seen volumes decline and shares slip, another sign that fears have quelled.

Shares of Lakeland Industries, an $86 million company that makes hazmat suits, surged with the outbreak, rising to $29 on October 13 from $6.13 at the end of August. Since then, the enthusiasm has dimmed - shares are down 53 percent.

Biotechnology stock Ibio Inc, which quadrupled to $3.21 a share in eight days leading to October 13, has since lost half its peak value.

"Ebola is having a diminishing marginal effect on market psychology," said Peter Kenny, chief market strategist at Clearpool Group in New York. 

(Reporting By Yasmeen Abutaleb; additional reporting by Herb Lash in New York and Francesco Canepa in London. Editing by David Gaffen and John Pickering)

http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2014/10/24/markets-react-positively-as-ny-ebola-fears-lessen/

Upbeat Earnings News on Markets in the Green

U.S. stocks advanced on Friday, as earnings from Microsoft (MSFT) and Procter & Gamble (PG) and easing concerns over the possible spread of Ebola in the United States helped put the S&P on track to snap a four-week losing skid.

Microsoft was up 2 percent at $45.91, after it reported higher-than-expected quarterly revenue while keeping its profit margins largely intact.

Fellow Dow component Procter & Gamble gained 2.7 percent to $85.51 and was also one of the biggest boosts to the S&P 500, after the world's largest household products maker posted quarterly results and said it would split its Duracell battery business into a separate company.

But Amazon (AMZN) plunged 7.5 percent to $289.69 as the biggest drag on both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 after the online retailer's sales projections for the crucial holiday quarter disappointed Wall Street and third-quarter results missed forecasts.

According to Thomson Reuters data through Friday morning, of 205 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings, 69.8 percent have topped analyst's expectations, above the 63 percent rate since 1994 and the 67 percent rate for the past four quarters. On the revenue side, 59.8 percent have beaten expectations, slightly below the 61 percent rate since 2002 but above the 58 percent rate for the past four quarters.

The S&P 500 is up 3.9 percent for the week, putting the index on track for its best week since the start of 2013, boosted largely by solid corporate earnings reports. The benchmark index is down 2.5 percent from its record high set on Sept. 18 after slumping more than 7 percent as volatility has spiked.

Investors continued to monitor developments on the Ebola virus. A doctor who worked in West Africa with Ebola patients was in an isolation unit in New York City after testing positive for the virus, while the World Health Organization set out plans for speeding up development and deployment of experimental Ebola vaccines.

"The management of the Ebola virus has given the market some confidence that they can move forward and focus on what pricing is really predicated upon - earnings and data - and in both cases they have been very constructive," said Peter Kenny, chief market strategist at Clearpool Group in New York.

At 12:18 p.m. Eastern time the Dow Jones industrial average rose 107.6 points, or 0.65 percent, to 16,785.5, the S&P 500 gained 11.73 points, or 0.6 percent, to 1,962.55 and the Nasdaq Composite added 21.88 points, or 0.49 percent, to 4,474.67.

Sales of new U.S. single-family homes rose to a six-year high in September, up 0.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 467,000 units.

The largest percentage gainer on the S&P 500 was Edwards Lifesciences (EW), which rose 12.0 percent, while the largest decliner was Amazon.

On the Nasdaq 100 the largest gainer was KLA-Tencor (KLAC), which rose 7.3 percent, while the largest decliner was Amazon.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by 1,782 to 1,164, for a 1.53-to-1 ratio on the upside; on the Nasdaq, 1,353 issues rose and 1,195 fell for a 1.13-to-1 ratio favoring advancers.

The benchmark S&P 500 index was posting 32 new 52-week highs and 2 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite was recording 40 new highs and 30 new lows. 

(Editing by James Dalgleish, Bernadette Baum and Chris Reese)

http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2014/10/24/markets-in-green-on-upbeat-earnings-news/

Jobless Claims Rise to 283,000 on US

The number of new claims for jobless benefits rose last week but remained near fourteen-year lows, the latest sign of an improving labor market.

Initial claims for unemployment benefits increased by 17,000 to a seasonally adjusted 283,000 in the week ended Oct. 18, the Labor Department said Thursday. That was slightly above the 282,000 claims forecast by economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal.

Claims for the previous week were revised up by 2,000 to 266,000. That was the lowest level since April 2000. The Labor Department said there were no special factors impacting the data.

The four-week moving average for initial claims, which smooths out week-to-week volatility, fell 3,000 to 281,000, its lowest level since May 2000.

The report also showed the number of people filing continuing claims for unemployment benefits fell 38,000 to 2.35 million for the week ended Oct. 11. Those figures are reported with a one-week lag.

Adjusted for population growth, initial claims are hovering around their lowest level on record. The low level reflects increased optimism on the part of employers as the economic recovery gains traction.

It also reflects a labor market that has become less dynamic over the last few decades. Employers have become less likely to lay off workers, though they have also grown more cautious about hiring new ones.

A sluggish jobs recovery since the recession has picked up this year. Payrolls have expanded an average 227,000 a month through September, putting 2014 on track to be the strongest year of job growth since the late 1990s.

But more than five years into the current expansion, most economists believe the amount of idled labor remains high by historical standards. The nation's unemployment rate is a still-elevated 5.9%, while many of those who do have jobs are stuck in part-time employment.

Federal Reserve officials have pledged to keep interest rates at their current level near zero for a "considerable time" to support a continued recovery in the labor market.

"I would still view the amount of slack in my own personal view as still being elevated," Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco president John Williams said in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal. "The unemployment rate is still well above my estimate of the natural rate; and if anything, the unemployment rate understates the amount of slack out there," he said.

The Labor Department report on jobless claims can be accessed at:http://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf

BREAKING NEWS: AT&T Posts Third-Quarter Earnings Miss

AT&T Inc (T) said on Wednesday its quarterly revenue rose but by less than wall street anticipated as a wave of subscribers signed up for equipment financing plans that charge lower service fees. AT&T shares fell 0.9 percent to $33.75 after closing at $34.50 on the New York Stock Exchange.

The company reported a record low number of customer defections, but average revenue per phone user fell 8 percent from a year earlier. AT&T added 2 million new wireless customers and 785,000 contract subscribers in the quarter. Wireless service revenue was flat while equipment revenue increased 44 percent.

The No. 2 U.S. mobile provider said on Wednesday that excluding items it earned 63 cents per share, a penny below Wall Street expectations, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Revenue rose 2.5 percent to $33 billion from $32.2 billion in the year-ago quarter.

(Reporting by Marina Lopes; Editing by Chris Reese and David Gregorio)

http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2014/10/22/att-reports-earnings/

Social everything to being smart socially and Global Trends Report 2014 trends business leaders

When Moore’s Law was published, its model of exponential rates of change seemed unbelievable. Today it still guides the semiconductor sector. The accelerating global pace of change today is analogous to Moore’s law. Since the turn of the century, emerging markets have moved center stage, the digital revolution has arrived, social networks have become ubiquitous, a sharing economy has been born, scientific advances such as mapping the human genome have changed our lives, and the voice of the people has reinvented markets and overturned governments.

For organizations and individuals the opportunities and challenges that a Moore’s Law of change offers are vast. Look for continued radical changes in retail and social networks and value chains being reconfigured as connectivity and technology redistribute industry. “Hubonomics” will shift how and where we operate and consume. The latest scientific advances will make the impossible, possible. Perhaps the biggest issue looking forward will be to understand and manage the contradictions these changes entail.

1.     From social everything to being smart socially

Social technologies are everywhere, but these vast repositories of digital “stuff” bury the exceptional among the unimportant. It’s time to get socially smart. Users are moving to niche networks to bring back the community feel and intelligence to social interactions. Businesses need to get smarter about extracting and delivering value from big data including challenging business models. For social networks, mobile is the great leveler. Competition for attention with other apps will intensify the battle to own key assets from identity to news sharing, demanding radical reinvention.        

The rise of niche networking: The world of social networking may be crowded but it does not deter new entrants. With significant interest in networks such as Google+ and Pinterest it became obvious that the consumers wanted something different, more specific, and focused from social networks – and plenty of new players are trying to provide it. One is SumZero, the world’s largest community of investment professionals from hedge funds, mutual funds, and private equity funds. Here more than 9,000 pre-screened professionals collaborate on a fully transparent platform. Another is Potluck, also known as “house party on the Internet,” designed for people wanting to “talk about cool things your friends find on the internet and hang out with people they know”. Other emerging niche networks include Quora, Quibb, Path, Best of All Worlds, Doximity and GovLoop. (Source: Fast Company)

Are companies being socially smart? Social networks are not just the place to connect for individuals. They are increasingly places for businesses to interact with customers. 87% of Fortune 100 companies now have a presence on at least one social media website, with Twitter the most popular, while over 80% of SMEs planned to increase their use of social media in 2013. Despite this business social presence, not all are listening. Firms respond, on average, to only 30% of feedback from social media websites; 56% of customer tweets are ignored; 39% of companies don’t track social response at all; and less than 20% of U.S companies have integrated social media with their customer service, sales or product development processes. How socially smart is your company? (Source: All Twitter)

What’s next after Facebook: 1+ billion users and counting. Facebook is still growing but warned earlier this year that it might be losing “younger users” to “other products and services similar to, or as a substitute for, Facebook.”Speculation is that if Facebook doesn’t reinvent itself, like other tech leaders such as Apple, Google and Yahoo, the heydays could be over sooner rather than later. Takeovers of Instagram and Onava suggest that Facebook may using acquisitions to “force back” users’ attention but it is an expensive and difficult strategy. Snapchat, the photo-messaging app, now boasts 350 million photo uploads daily, the same number as Facebook. WhatsApp, the messaging service with 300 million users, has been able to collect paid download and annual subscription revenue. In the tech industry “no change – no customer” is the rule. Will Facebook be able to keep up with startups likeSnapchat and WhatsApp?  (Source: BuzzFeed FWD, The Guardian,Business Insider)

Embracing big data: The big data buzz has been around for a while but many organizations still don’t know how to tap into the tremendous amount of useful data that they collect. A survey sponsored by SAP indicates that 43% of organizations have some type of formal “big data” initiative going on, with most 1000+ employee firms engaged in “big data” initiatives. One is GE who has used big data to make smarter turbines. Another example is Wichita State University's (WSU) which uses it (as do many U.S. educational institutions) to optimize offerings and steer help to students who need it. Cities worldwide are also using big data to control traffic, parking opportunities, and energy consumption. (Source: Gigaom, Fast Company, Mashable). As everything and everyone gets more connected expect to see more big data projects coming your way – as a recent Bain study shows, those early adopters that have found the potential of big data are out performing competitors by a wide margin.

Prudential business leaders reflect on findings from women's study

Our eighth biennial study on the "Financial Experience & Behaviors Among Women" uncovers optimism about recovering markets and encouraging short-term improvements, but troubling long-term trends.

With the economy and financial markets continuing to improve, women appear to be less worried about their financial security than they were in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.

Women still have a number of identifiable financial goals, of course. High on their list: having enough money to maintain their lifestyle throughout retirement, to cover health care expenses and to reduce personal debt. They also don't want to become a financial burden to loved ones or outlive their savings. And they define financial success as achieving a comfortable, financially secure retirement. The difference is simply that they no longer attach as high a degree of importance to these goals as they did a few years ago.

Nonetheless, women we surveyed feel no more prepared to make wise financial decisions today than they did two years ago or even a decade ago. Nor has their understanding of financial and insurance products improved. Not surprisingly, the Confidence Gap—our measure of women's confidence in their ability to achieve their financial goals—has not improved over that 10-year span, either.

Despite these findings, women—like men—still do not tend to seek out financial professionals to help them achieve their goals. This is particularly concerning given that women increasingly are making the financial decisions in their households. Nearly half of women—44 percent—are the primary breadwinners in their households, and 27 percent of married women now say they "take control" of financial and retirement planning and manage it themselves, up from 14 percent in 2006.

One of the biggest perceived impediments to reaching financial goals is not having enough disposable income to dedicate toward them, cited by about half of women. But they also admit to a lack of familiarity with financial products and the sense that they simply don't know what to consider when evaluating their options.

While the survey paints a troubling picture of their long-term financial preparedness, the results indicate that women are more confident in their ability to manage day-to-day finances. And they have advice for financial services firms about how to help them achieve their long-term financial goals: simplify the process, stop using so much jargon, look out for the customer's interests, and maintain a strong code of ethics.

At Prudential, we remain steadfast in our commitment to improve women's financial literacy, and to develop innovative tools and resources to help them create a clear path toward a more secure retirement.

Our latest study reinforces that there will always be more for us to learn about women's financial insecurities and long-term goals. Our 14 years of dedicated research have given us the foundation and framework necessary to empower women to take control and secure their future

http://www.prudential.com/media/managed/wm/WM-new-womens-survey.html

Starting in 2018 Rivals of Siemens Sees Catch-Up

German engineering group Siemens may need until 2018 before it can start to catch up with major rivals in terms of sales growth, its chief executive told a German magazine.

CEO Joe Kaeser unveiled a corporate overhaul in May, dubbed "Vision 2020", that will simplify the group's structure and help the company make up ground lost to more profitable competitors such as Switzerland's ABB <ABBN.VX> and U.S.-based General Electric <GE.N>.

"The growth targets under 'Vision 2020' are set out in such a way that we can grow faster than the competitors from 2018," Kaeser was quoted as saying by Manager Magazin on Wednesday, according to an excerpt of an interview to be published on Friday.

He cited product development cycles of many years for the company's gear and equipment such as gas and wind turbines, converter stations and trains.

Kaeser said in July there was "no quick fix" for the problems at its energy business.

Manager Magazin also cited company sources as saying that up to 10,000 more jobs may have to be cut over the next few years as part of the overhaul. The company said in May that close to 12,000 jobs would be affected. Siemens declined to comment. (Reporting by Jens Hack; Writing by Ludwig Burger, editing by Louise Heavens)

http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2014/10/22/siemens-sees-catch-up-to-rivals-starting-in-2018/?intcmp=fbfeatures