United Technologies Corp. says net income from continuing operations rose more than 19 percent during the first quarter, factoring out the businesses that the manufacturer put up for sale.
That would equate to earnings of $1.26 billion, or $1.31 per share, compared with earnings from those same operations last year of $1.05 billion, or $1.06 per share.
That tops the $1.21 expected on Wall Street, according to a poll by FactSet.
The parent company of jet engine maker Pratt & Whitney, Otis elevator, Carrier heating and cooling and other aerospace and building systems companies said Tuesday that revenue was $12 payday loan.42 billion in the January-March quarter, down 2 percent from the same period last year.
Including the discontinued operations, net income fell to $330 million, compared with $1.01 billion last year.
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The Coca-Cola Co. said Tuesday that its net income rose 8 percent in the first quarter as it hiked prices and sold more of its beverages around the world.
Although volume growth came from all regions, the world’s largest drink maker said increases were far greater in emerging markets. In the Eurasia and Africa region, for example, volume grew 9 percent, compared with a 2 percent increase in North America.
The company also had strong growth beyond its soda as consumers increasingly have become concerned about drinking and eating healthy. Global volume for bottled water grew 15 percent in the quarter, while energy drinks volume rose 25 percent. That surpassed the volume gains in the company’s namesake Coca-Cola soda, which increased 4 percent.
Even the slight bump in volume in North America was driven largely by the company’s Powerade energy drinks, Dasani bottled water and zero-calorie vitaminwater.
Despite the competition and market saturation at home, CEO Muhtar Kent said: “We believe North America is a growth market for our business.”
Total revenue was $11.14 billion for the three months ended March 30, up 6 percent from $10.52 billion a year ago, in large part because of higher prices in areas like North America. Analysts expected revenue of $10.82 billion for the latest quarter.
Coke said it earned $2.05 billion, or 89 cents per share, a penny per share above what analysts polled by FactSet had expected. In the year-ago period, it had net income of $1.9 billion, or 82 cents per share.
The company also said that the cost-cutting program it began in the quarter is on track. When completed, the measures are expected to save up to $650 million annually by 2015.
Coke is looking to trim costs wherever possible to offset rising commodity prices, which continue to eat into profits for food and drink makers industry-wide. Coke said its cost of goods rose 10 percent in the quarter.
Kent noted that Coke’s global marketing campaign for the summer Olympics in London is set to strengthen its brands by “tapping into emotional passion points like sports and music.”
Shares of Coca-Cola rose $1.04, or 1.4 percent, to $73.48 in premarket trading.
The Obama administration on Saturday said it would again gauge interest from the oil and gas industry to explore federal waters off the Alaska coast, another bid to expand domestic energy production as gas prices soar and political pressure grows.
The Interior Department said it would again issue an official request for drilling interest in potential development leases in federal waters in Cook Inlet off the south-central coast of Alaska.
A federal lease sale for that area a year ago was canceled because of lack of interest. Cook Inlet, the channel that runs from the Anchorage area south to the Gulf of Alaska, is home to Alaska’s oldest producing oil and gas basin.
The Interior Department has estimated the area could contain more than 1 billion barrels of oil and 1.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas that is undiscovered and potentially recoverable. It has said at least one company has expressed interest, but has not identified it.
There were 13 exploration wells drilled in the federal waters in the Cook Inlet area between 1978 and 1985, but there are no active exploration or development facilities in the federal area now, according to the department payday loan lenders.
The new request for interest is the first stage in a likely two-year process for selling the federal leases and comes as the Obama administration has been under pressure to find new domestic energy sources, an issue that has already had a big impact on the 2012 presidential campaign.
Republicans have repeatedly hammered President Barack Obama, a Democrat, over rising prices at the gas pump, which have jumped almost 30 cents in the past month, pushing the national average to $3.87 a gallon.
They have also criticized Obama for failing to approve the $7 billion Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL oil pipeline, which Republicans argue would create thousands of jobs and bolster the U.S. economic recovery.
Obama earlier this week pledged to speed up approval for the pipeline, though analysts have said it will not likely be completed until 2014 at the earliest.
U.S. stock futures are up ahead of another round of economic data that should shed further light on whether the recovery in the world’s largest economy is still picking up steam.
Dow Jones industrial futures rose 23 points to 13,195. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 futures are up 2 points to 1,398. Nasdaq 100 futures are up 4 points to 2,716.
The market has rallied on upbeat U.S. economic data and easing worries about European debt, despite some concern over the rise in oil prices. On Thursday, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index closed above 1,400 for the first time since June 2008.
Later Friday, the focus will be on consumer inflation and industrial production figures as well as the closely watched University of Michigan consumer confidence survey.
Some experts say Boeing
A suicide bomber detonated his car Sunday as a group of police recruits left their academy in Baghdad, killing 20 in the latest strike on security officials that angry residents blamed on political feuding that is roiling Iraq.
Police said the suicide bomber was waiting on the street outside the fortified academy near the Interior Ministry headquarters in an eastern neighborhood in the Iraqi capital. As the crowd of recruits exited the compound’s security barriers around 1 p.m. and walked into the road, police said the bomber drove toward them and blew up his car.
“We heard a big explosion and the windows of the room shattered,” said Haider Mohammed, 44, an employee in the nearby Police Sports Club, about 100 yards (meters) from the academy’s gate. He described a horrific scene of burning cars, scattered pieces of burned flesh and wounded people flattened on the ground.
“Everybody here knows the time when the recruits come and go from the academy,” Mohammed said. “This is a breach of security.”
Five policemen were among the dead; the rest were recruits. Another 28 recruits and policemen were wounded.
Officials at three nearby hospitals confirmed the casualties.
All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
Iraq’s police are generally considered to be the weakest element of the country’s security forces, which are attacked in bombings and drive-by shooting almost every day. The last big assault on police came in October, when 25 people were killed in a string of attacks that included two bombers slamming explosives-packed cars into police stations.
Recruits, too, are a favorite target: Suicide bombers killed scores of young men lined up for security jobs or otherwise at training centers in Baghdad and the northern city of Tikrit in recent years. The public outcry that followed from lawmakers and residents after those attacks spurred the government to bolster training and recruiting centers with better protections.
But, as Sunday’s attacks showed, extremists are easily able to sidestep security measures. At Baghdad’s police academy, recruits generally are escorted out of the compound to ensure their safety. But once they get to the street outside, they are on their own.
It was at that point the bomber struck on Sunday. The group of recruits had left the compound’s barrier gates and were crossing the road to hail a taxi or bus ride home after finishing a two-week training course.
Shiite lawmaker Hakim al-Zamili, who sits on parliament’s security and defense committee, said the academy’s officials should have been more careful about letting the recruits go at the same time every day. He said that was a pattern that insurgents easily noted.
“This was negligence by security officials in charge of the academy security,” al-Zamili said.
Al-Zamili blamed al-Qaida for launching the attack but raised the possibility that it aimed to ramp up bitterness among Iraqis already exasperated with ongoing political fighting that has consumed the government for weeks. “The political feuds are contributing to such security violations because they are demoralizing the security members,” he said.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, but suicide attacks are a hallmark of al-Qaida.
Al-Qaida’s potency in Iraq has thinned since its heyday five years ago, when the country teetered on the brink of civil war. But last week, Iraqi and U.S. officials acknowledged al-Qaida remains a viable threat, noting fears that local fighters in the Sunni-dominated insurgent network were shifting to Syria to aid forces opposing the regime of President Bashar Assad.
But some of Baghdad’s residents said Sunday’s attack likely was rooted in political turbulence that has shaken Iraq in recent weeks.
In findings that were expected to hike already-simmering sectarian tensions, a judicial panel last week said that at least 150 attacks and assassinations since 2005 were linked to Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, Iraq’s highest-ranking Sunni official.
The charges against al-Hashemi, who has sought haven from arrest in the autonomous northern Kurdish region, were first brought in December by the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Al-Hashemi has denied the charges and is expected to give a speech in coming days to defend himself.
“The people were expecting such attacks because of the current tense political atmosphere in the country,” said Ali Rahim, 40, a government employee. “Those poor recruits were looking to send the salary to their families and now they are going to be sent as dead bodies to these families.”
Al-Hashemi is a member of the secular but Sunni-dominated Iraqiya political bloc, which on Sunday accused the government of rehashing the charges on state TV at the risk of inflaming current strains.
Repeating the accusations against al-Hashemi “will provoke the public and create more tension as political blocs are working to defuse the tension and end the crisis,” Iraqiya spokeswoman Maysoun al-Damluji said in a statement.
The judicial panel’s findings against al-Hashemi are not legally binding, and he is entitled to a trial. But it opened the door to let 15 relatives of those killed in the attacks linked to al-Hashemi file lawsuits against him on Sunday.
Two years of minimal wage increases have left Christoph Schoenau, a metallographer for auto and aircraft component maker GKN Plc at a factory near Frankfurt, feeling left out of Germany
Parties backing Greece’s coalition government will hold a second day of emergency talks Monday on a vital austerity deal with rescue creditors, after an intense weekend of negotiations failed to produce a breakthrough needed to avert bankruptcy in March.
Prime Minister Lucas Papademos will meet with negotiators from the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund in the afternoon and then with the leaders of the three parties backing his coalition.
The parties all publicly oppose steep cuts in private sector pay demanded by the eurozone and IMF, but their backing is needed for the government to reach a deal for the bailout, which must be approved by the Greek Parliament.
The new euro130 billion ($171 billion) bailout deal is vital for Greece to avoid bankruptcy next month as it cannot cover a euro14.5 billion ($19.1 billion) bond repayment due March 20 without the rescue funds.
The debt-crippled country has been kept solvent since May 2010 by payments from a euro110 billion ($145 billion) international rescue loan package. When it became clear the money would not be enough, a second bailout was decided last October.
Its implementation depends on the austerity measures but also on separate talks with banks and other private bondholders to forgive euro100 billion ($131.6 billion) in Greek debt, in exchange for a cash payment and new bonds with more lenient repayment terms.
Over the weekend, Greek officials held a conference call with eurozone finance ministers, as well as more talks in Athens with EU-IMF debt inspectors, senior bank negotiators, and Greek political party leaders, to try and hammer out a deal on the new cutbacks.
Greeks have already been subjected to a spate of austerity measures in return for the rescue loans, suffering significant cuts in pensions and salaries coupled with repeated tax hikes and an increase in retirement ages.
Angry at the prospect of new pain after two years of harsh austerity, Greece’s main GSEE labor union and the ADEDY civil servants’ union called a new general strike for Tuesday.
“Together with the GSEE, we have just decided to hold a 24-hour strike tomorrow, to be accompanied by a protest march in central Athens,” ADEDY secretary-general Ilias Iliopoulos told the AP free instant credit score.
An ADEDY statement said the proposed new cutbacks would “intensify the vicious cycle of recession and drive Greek society to despair.”
Greece is in its fifth year of recession, while unemployment has hit record highs of about 19 percent.
“The current policy of austerity … is turning workers into pariahs, jobless people and pensioners into paupers and deprives our youth of any hope,” the statement said. “This policy has already pushed Greeks beyond their limits and must be stopped at any cost.”
An announcement from Papademos’ office late Sunday said agreement had been reached to cut 2012 spending by 1.5 percent of gross domestic product _ about euro3.3 billion ($4.3 billion) _ improve competitiveness by slashing wages and non-wage costs, and re-capitalize banks without nationalizing them.
But the three coalition backers _ Socialist George Papandreou, Conservative Antonis Samaras and George Karatzaferis of the rightwing populist LAOS party _ differed as to what this would mean in detailed proposals.
Party leaders had undertaken to provide an initial response on the demanded cutbacks before their Monday evening meeting with Papademos, a Socialist party spokesman said. However, the prime minister’s office said there was no formal demand for a response, while the conservatives and LAOS said they were not planning to issue one.
“We are in the middle of a major struggle. Right now, the developments are satisfactory,” said Karatzaferis, adding that EU-IMF negotiators had backed away from a demand to ax annual salary installments given to Greek workers as holiday bonuses.
Rescue lenders are also seeking firings in Greece’s large public sector, a drop in the euro750 ($985) gross minimum monthly wage, and cuts in lump-sum retirement payouts, as part of a long list of cost-cutting demands.
Also Monday, left wing opposition parties are planning two separate protest rallies in central Athens at 6:00 p.m. (1600GMT), against the proposed cuts.
Bank of Korea Governor Kim Choong Soo said that South Korea
The Google+ social network has topped 60 million users, according to Ancestry.com founder Paul Allen, who also made the bold prediction late Tuesday that Google+ would reach 400 million users by the end of 2012.
Allen, who calls himself the "unofficial statistician" of Google+, runs hundreds of queries on various surnames on the social network each week. He has been tracking those names since Google first announced that Google+ had reached 10 million users in July.
Google+, the company’s answer to Facebook, got off to a roaring start, hitting the 10 million mark in just two weeks — and that was even before the site was open to the public.
But growth had tapered off, taking three months to reach 40 million users, according to Google’s numbers.
Google’s hasn’t given a more recent count. But Allen has seen a rapid resurgence, estimating that the service hit 62 million late Tuesday.
"It may be the holidays, the TV commercials, celebrity and brand appeal, or positive word of mouth, or a combination of all these factors, but there is no question that the number of new users signing up for Google+ each day has accelerated markedly in the past several weeks," Allen wrote on his Google+ page.
Google’s (, Fortune 500) social network is now adding 625,000 users each day, Allen said.
At that pace, Google+ would reach nearly 300 million users by the end of 2012. But Allen believes that growth will accelerate, enabling it to hit 400 million.
There’s one crucial missing piece in Allen’s analysis: He only cites the total number of people who have signed up for the network, not the number of people who actually use it. People may sign into the service to check it out and never use it again.
Facebook, by contrast, reports that it has 800 million "active users," which are those users that have viewed a Facebook page or have used an application. Half of all Facebook active users log onto the social network in any given day, the social network says.
Google entices users to sign up in its newly redesigned home page, by making Google+ the first option in an ever-present pull-down menu — an option that sits right above search. It’s unclear how many sign up but then never actually use Google+.
The technology and advertising industries alike are watching Google+ very closely, which could yet prove to be a sizable alternative to Facebook. The project is very important to Google, which is trying to overcome its past miscues in the social networking space.
More people visit Google’s network of websites than Facebook each month, but Facebook is killing Google in categories that advertisers care most about: Time spent and pages viewed.
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