LIVE: Alibaba Earnings (BABA) | ||
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Alibaba, the $250 billion Chinese e-commerce giant, is set to announce its first quarterly earnings results since going public on September 19. Expectations are for the company to report earnings per share of $0.45 on revenue of $2.61 billion, according to data from Yahoo Finance. Alibaba is set to host a conference call to discuss its results at 7:30 am ET. On Monday, Alibaba shares closed a new high of $101.80, bringing the stock's post-IPO gains to nearly 50% since the stock priced at $68 ahead of its September debut. In its first day of trading, shares of Alibaba gained about 38% to close at $93.89, and in pre-market trading on Tuesday ahead of the earnings report, Alibaba shares were up another nearly 3% to around $104.70. On the day of Alibaba's IPO, the S&P 500 hit a new all-time intraday high of 2,018 early in the session, a level that the benchmark stock index did not regain until Monday, when the S&P hit 2,022 in afternoon trade. And so while some saw the Alibaba debut as signaling a potential market top, stocks have fought their way back after a roughly 9% sell off in early October. We'll see how the market takes Alibaba's first public earnings report, but either way we will have full live coverage of the numbers right here when they hit. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Ukraine rebel leader sworn in as head of separatist 'republic' | ||
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Donetsk (Ukraine) (AFP) - Ukraine rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko was sworn in Tuesday as head of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic after claiming a crushing victory at weekend separatist polls rejected by Kiev. "I swear to serve the people of the Donetsk People's Republic," Zakharchenko said at a ceremony in the main theatre of the rebel stronghold.
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LIVE: Alibaba Earnings (BABA) | ||
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Alibaba, the $250 billion Chinese e-commerce giant, is set to announce its first quarterly earnings results since going public on September 19. Expectations are for the company to report earnings per share of $0.45 on revenue of $2.61 billion, according to data from Yahoo Finance. Alibaba is set to host a conference call to discuss its results at 7:30 am ET. On Monday, Alibaba shares closed a new high of $101.80, bringing the stock's post-IPO gains to nearly 50% since the stock priced at $68 ahead of its September debut. In its first day of trading, shares of Alibaba gained about 38% to close at $93.89, and in pre-market trading on Tuesday ahead of the earnings report, Alibaba shares were up another nearly 3% to around $104.70. On the day of Alibaba's IPO, the S&P 500 hit a new all-time intraday high of 2,018 early in the session, a level that the benchmark stock index did not regain until Monday, when the S&P hit 2,022 in afternoon trade. And so while some saw the Alibaba debut as signaling a potential market top, stocks have fought their way back after a roughly 9% sell off in early October. We'll see how the market takes Alibaba's first public earnings report, but either way we will have full live coverage of the numbers right here when they hit. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Europe's Policies Are Failing The Unemployed | ||
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The European Commission's latest economic forecasts are grim. Overall, growth for the eurozone is expected to be 1.1% this year, down from the 1.7% in the spring forecast. On the unemployment front the report took an even more negative tone. Labour market conditions are expected to improve very gradually, with unemployment falling from 11.5% today to 10.8% in the eurozone by 2016.
But the headline stats hide the deep divisions among country outlooks. In particular, the huge divide in the prospects for the unemployed across Europe look set to last. On the one side, you have the eurozone's core countries, which have managed to bounce back since the depths of the crisis. Unemployment in Germany is set to fall from 5.1% this year to 4.8% by 2016
The Netherlands is set to follow a similar trend with unemployment declining from 6.9% to 6.7% over the next two years.
In the middle of the pack France, Europe's second-largest economy, is feeling the impact of the region's woes more acutely. The country's budget deficit is expected to consistently breach the 3% rule under the Stability and Growth Pact. By 2016, one in 10 in the country look set to remain out of work almost a decade since the onset of the Great Recession.
But at the other end of the spectrum are the countries worst hit by the Great Recession and the euro crisis that followed. In Greece and Spain, unemployment is set to remain above a staggering 20% through 2016 and likely beyond. This demonstrates the clear failure of the region's policies in preventing the effects of the downturn inflicting lasting damage to member states.
Incidentally, this type of divergence in economic fortunes is precisely what the European economic union and the single currency were supposed to avoid. The longer Southern Europe is allowed to languish the more damage is likely to the region's long-term growth potential as workers become de-skilled or demotivated and the long-term unemployed take huge hits to their lifetime earning potential. The short message for Europe's policymakers: you must be able to do better than this. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Santander posts 52% jump in third quarter profit | ||
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Madrid (AFP) - Santander, the eurozone's biggest bank by market value, said Tuesday its profits jumped by 52.1 percent in the third quarter due to higher earnings in its main markets and lower costs. Net profit increased to 1.601 billion euros ($2.0 billion), up from 1.06 billion euros in the same period last year, the bank said in a statement. During the first nine months of the year net profit rose 31.7 percent to 4.36 billion euros even as net operating income inched down 0.3 percent to 16.75 billion euros. "The group's three core markets -- Spain, Britain and Brazil -- all posted profit growth in the January-September period, something that had not happened since 2009," the statement said. The bank said cost reductions were greater than expected. Santander had planned to reduce costs by 750 million euros in all of 2014 but by the end of September it had already met this goal. It said it has now revised its goal and is forecasting costs to fall by one billion euros in 2014. "Profit growth in 2014 helped consolidate the earnings recovery, thanks to improving revenues, falling costs and less need for write-downs," Ana Botin, who became Santander chairman in September after the death of her father Emilio Botin, said in a statement. The group also said its ratio of high-risk loans -- mostly left over from a 2008 real estate crash -- fell in the third quarter in a row to 5.28 percent. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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