Thursday, July 30, 2009

Quick Notes for the Day - July 30

Jobless Claims Rise and Continuing Claims Fall - The Labor Department reported initial weekly jobless claims rose by 25,000 to a seasonally adjusted 584,000 last week. The rise was expected by economists. The four-week average of claims fell by 8,250 to 559,000, and continuing jobless claims also dropped, by 54,000 to 6.19 million. The four-week average of continuing claims fell by 131,750 to 6.41 million.

IMF Sees Signs of Improvement in Europe - The euro zone remains in recession but is showing some "tentative signs of improvement" amid an "uncertain" outlook, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Thursday. IMF staff cautioned against a premature withdrawal of fiscal stimulus measures. ECB policy makers and IMF staff agreed that monetary policy "has to maintain a supportive stance," the report said. IMF staff urged the ECB to keep rates low and argued that "all unconventional measures would need to remain under consideration to deal with the risk of protracted deflation."

MasterCard Makes a Profit - MasterCard reported a second-quarter profit of $349 million ($2.67 a share) versus last year with a loss of $747 million ($5.70). MasterCard added that net revenues rose to $1.28 billion, from $1.25 billion. Both revenue and profit exceeded analysts estimates of $1.25 billion in revenue and $2.42 a share.

Kellogg's Profits Rise - Kellogg reported its earning on Thursday to tune of $354 million (92 cents a share) versus last year at $312 million (82 cents). Analysts had been expecting 83 cents. Revenue did come in a little short at $3.2 billion compared to $3.3 billion ($3.3 billion was last year's revenue also).

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