Johnson & Johnson
The health-care products maker’s fourth-quarter profit rose 14 percent, topping Wall Street forecasts, but the company said Tuesday it expects weaker results in 2009.
New Brunswick, N.J.-based J&J earned $2.71 billion, or 97 cents per share, up from $2.37 billion, or 82 cents per share, during the same period a year earlier.
Revenue fell 4.9 percent to $15.18 billion from $15.96 billion.
IBM
Big Blue forecast significantly higher profits for 2009 than Wall Street expected, a surprisingly bullish sign that reflects IBM’s belief that it can outmaneuver the financial crisis by focusing on landing high-margin services and software contracts. Shares leaped 4 percent in extended trading.
IBM said its net income in the fourth quarter of 2008 was $4.4 billion, or $3.28 per share. That amounted to a 12 percent profit increase from $3.95 billion, or $2.80 per share, in the same period a year earlier. Revenue fell 6 percent to $27 billion, short of expectations.
Analysts were expecting IBM to earn $3.03 per share.
State Street
Shares dived to a 13-year low after the commercial bank reported a 71 percent drop in fourth-quarter earnings and warned of a difficult year ahead.
For the final period of 2008, the company earned $65 million, or 15 cents per share, compared with $223 million, or 57 cents per share, in the year- ago quarter.
TD Ameritrade
The online brokerage trimmed its outlook for the year and announced plans to cut costs by about $60 million, as it reported a 23 percent drop in first-quarter profit.
The Omaha-based company said it earned $184.4 million, or 31 cents per share, in the quarter that ended Dec. 31, down from $240.8 million, or 40 cents per share, a year ago. That matched the average estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters.
CSX
The railroad operator said its fourth-quarter earnings sank 32 percent from a year earlier, mostly because of a sizable write-down on the value of a resort the company owns.
CSX posted net earnings of $247 million, or 63 cents per share, compared with $365 million, or 86 cents per share, a year earlier. Revenue rose 4 percent to $2.7 billion.
