Stock Watch

David Jones Ltd, the department store chain, released its first half results today. The retailer posted a 10.2% increase in its net income in the first half. The excellent results for the first six months of the year were mainly attributable to the heavy promotional activity and discounting by retailers.

The retailer also said that it expects a slowdown in second half of the fiscal despite the excellent first half.

John Lewis's stores posted a rise of 15.9 per cent in sales after the weather became better and sunny.

The sales figures at Waitrose posted the highest increase of 12.1 per cent. It was followed by the department stores in Edinburgh which showed an increase of 5.3 per cent, while the ones in Glasgow were up by 5 per cent.

Waitrose is the supermarket chain of the John Lewis which is totally employee-owned.

However, one of two branches in Aberdeen posted a loss. It went down by 0.6 per cent.

The figures mentioned are for the last week ending March 6.

Northern Rock Plc ha said yesterday that it has decided to pay £14.9m in bonuses to its staff after the state owned bank was able to bring down its losses by £1billion.

The bank said that about 32 employees will get a bonus exceeding £25,000 on which the government has imposed a super tax rate of 50 per cent. The company will pay a total of £1.5 million as super tax to the government.

Transcend Information has recorded a drop of 20.1% in revenues to $73 million in the month of February 2010 mainly due to fewer working days in the month.

The company also saw drop in shipments to about 4.77 million units from 5.7 million shipped in January 2010.

Olympic Steel Inc has recorded a 63.7% fall in net sales at USD 121.6 million in the third quarter of the current year from USD 335.2 million for the third quarter of 2008.

The total steel sold in the quarter declined 32.2% year on year to 181,000 Tonnes from 268,000 Tonnes in the same period previous year. Net income of the firm in the quarter stood at USD 671,000 from USD 24.2 million year on year.

A combined net profit for third quarter ended Dec. 2009 was reported to be Rs 650.26 Crore for the most important auto-maker, Tata Motors, on Friday. This profit is result of introduction of new products backed by Government stimulus and pushed by restoration of demand in the domestic market. In a filing made by Tata Motors to the Bombay Stock Exchange it was cited that in the same quarter the previous year, the company had suffered a loss of Rs
2,598 Crore.

Daimler AG, World's second largest luxury car maker, announced on Thursday, that there will be no annual dividend for the year 2009 as the company posted an unexpected loss in the fourth quarter of FY 2009 ended December.

Daimler, the manufacturer of famous Mercedes Benz brand, reported a net loss of _352 million while in the same period last fiscal the company reported a loss of _1.53 billion. The company blamed the higher cost of credit for the weak quarterly performance.

The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. reported an unexpected profit in the fourth quarter of FY 2009 beating all the estimates as the market analysts were expecting a loss in the quarter.

Qwest Communications International Inc., reported a decline of 39% in the fourth-quarter profit owing to discharging of costs and declining sales.

Revenue of the company reported a decline of 9.7% to $3 billion and net profit decline to $108 million during the fourth quarter compared to $177 million for the same period of previous financial year.

GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals has recorded profit after tax (PAT) of Rs 103.59 crore in the fourth quarter of the calendar year 2009 as against Rs 208.47 crore in the same period of 2008.

The results are mostly in line with the market expectations. The company performed well in segments like mass market, mass specialty, specialty segments and vaccines.