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IT & Diversified Sector •

On Thursday, First Solar Inc’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) said the company will not convert the solar power plants so as to turn it into separate and publicly-traded unit, which was done by some of the company’s competitors.

Solar’s shares slanted over 6% after its CEO Jim Hughes declared the decision to discuss the company’s third quarter income.

Some solar players like the NRG Energy and SunEdison have bundled up their solar assets and converted them into vehicles called as ‘yield cos’.

Such instruments operate and own solar assets, which have long-term agreements with utilities, assuring more stable cash flow as paid out dividends towards investors or will be re-invested in new solar plants by its parent company.

Hughes said they don’t assume they’re missing gross margin or market share, capture opportunities since the company does not have any ‘yield co’ currently.

The company is producing solar panels as well as creating solar power plants, most of which are sold to power suppliers. First Solar will also sustain its proprietorship of some projects, without any yield co according to Hughes.

Meanwhile, the Arizona-based company reported its 88.4 million dollars quarterly profit or 87-cent a share, compared to the previous year’s 195 million dollars or 1.94-cent a share.

The company earned 61-cent per share, setting aside one-time tax benefit. On the other hand, analysts’ forecast the earnings of 64-cent a share, except special items.

The revenue was posted at 889.3 million dollars, missing the forecast of 1.049 billion revenues. Shares traded at 52.77 dollars in extended trading, and closed at 56.41 dollars on the NASDAQ.

On Thursday, the EDF, a French utility industry, said that a robust French nuclear output recompensed the negative effects of adverse weather in its first 9-month sales for the year.

The company sales jumped only 0.4% to 52.3B euros or 65B dollars. Its sales, based on like-for-like, merger activity adjustments, and currency impact, dropped 1.3%.

The company said its nuclear plants’ output expanded to 305.1 terawatt per hour, up 2.5% from the previous period, after plans on reducing outage duration. The company also confirmed its 2014 guidance, targeting the upper range.

Henri Proglio, company CEO said EDF showed off a robust Q3 performance, despite weather conditions and economic challenges, also confirming the company’s 2014 targets.

Jean-Bernard Levy will replace the current CEO by month-end. Levy is the leader of Thales, an aerospace and defense company.

EDF expects its 2014 group consolidated earnings before EBITDA, except its Edison unit to indicate a primary increase of 3% at least.

However, the firm confirmed its review of its target to generate positive cash flows after dividends, except its Linky smart meters investment by 2018. The investment will be installed in households from 2016 to 2020, expecting to cost 5B euros.

Company shares drifted after the government of France scrapped a 5% plan of tariff increase last August, and allowed only a 2.5% increase beginning November 1. Shares dropped 11% to date, and rated as the third poorest performer in the utilities index .SX6P.

Daicel Corp., one of the air bag inflator producers said it has not received further discussions from its customers about their inflator sales after different automakers recalled their units worldwide due to potential defective airbags produced by Takata Corp, Daicel’s rival.

The Osaka-based company has 16% of the worldwide inflator market and contends against Takata. Daicel said it is not considering any new capital outlay for the production of airbags, until further notice.

Takata Corp, also based in Japan, warns a bigger full-year loss as it reported its quarterly revenue on Thursday. The company has 22% of the worldwide inflator market, securing $655 million or 75 billion yen in covering almost 9 million recalls of cars.

For many years, Takata’s air bag inflators have been used by different car makers across the globe. However, a United States regulatory probe focuses on the said products, ordering a recall of about 17 million vehicles worldwide due to potential defective products.

Two experts in the industry said the company might save 2 or more billion yen from its July-September revenue in covering charges for additional recalls.

On Thursday, Daicel announced its July-September earnings of 4.1 billion dollars as its shares rose more than a quarter during the recent two weeks. The company is also hopeful that it would obtain the automaker’s industry from Takata.

The Houston-based oil company, Apache Corp reported a net loss of 1.3 billion dollars on Thursday as the impact of tax, gas, and oil property charges, although the company is in the midst of selling its offshore operations.

Despite the company’s pressure from Jana Partners, an Apache activist stated in July its intentions of exiting two projects in Australia and Canada, those which are liquefied natural gas projects. Apache is also assessing the spin-off or sale of its global operations in order to concentrate on drilling in the North American shale shafts.

The company posted a 1.3 billion loss, equivalent to 3.50 dollars per share, compared to the 300 million profit, or 75-cent per share same quarter last year.

Apache generated a 1.38 dollar per share profit, excluding items that are included in the 1 billion dollar write-down of specific gas and oil assets because of low energy costs. Analysts estimated an average profit of 1.38 dollars per share.

The company’s overall gas and oil output for the quarter be around 637,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day or ‘boepd’, compared to the 784,000 ‘boepd’ last year.

Apache said it is now expecting its North American liquid production for 2014 to meet the estimated growth of between 15% and 18%.

The AOL Inc., a digital media company posted its revenue growth, better than expected as advertisers utilized the company’s automated platforms in buying and selling digital ads.

The company’s overall quarterly revenue jumped 12% to 626.8 million dollars, surpassing the average estimate of analysts of 623.5 million.

Its advertising revenue rose 18% to 473.4 million dollars, driven by a significant uptick in its sales from third-party platforms, wherein the company assists advertisers in placing dollars on further digital properties. However, company shares dropped 6% to 41.36 dollars on Thursday’s morning trade.

The company owns The Huffington Post, a media property, and Adap.TV, an automated advertising platform, being in the middle of a reversal process, moving away from subscription dial-up profits.

AOL is benefiting from the increasing trend of advertisers who are allocating more money on digital video. Other media companies posted weak ad revenue at their cable units this week. Other shifts came from poor ratings, which caused advertisers to find out digital video.

The company CEO Tim Armstrong said consumers are in quick motion towards web video, mobile, and streaming video products. The CEO reiterated that advertisers are allocating more TV money with digital video.

AOL’s net income jumped to 28.5 million dollars or 35-cent per share for the quarter. Excluding items, the company earnings were at 52-cent per share, meeting the analysts’ forecast.

AMC Networks Incorporated, home to hit shows like “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad”, reported higher-than-expected overall quarterly profit because the company’s business significantly benefited from purchasing Chellomedia, an international provider of content.

AMC purchased Chellomedia, a part of Liberty Global Plc of John Malone, for almost $1.04B last January, allowing AMC to access more markets in 130 different countries.

Overall revenue from AMC’s division that primarily holds their film and international business, increased to almost 9-fold amounting to $122.7M., This is mainly because of the recent success of “Boyhood”, a drama film by Richard Linklater that was filmed for a duration of 12 years.

Meanwhile, new AMC shows, Like “Turn”, “Low Winter Sun”, and also “Halt & Catch Fire” failed in duplicating the great success of “Mad Men”, “Breaking Bad”, and also “the Walking Dead”, AMC’s net overall profit decreased mainly because of more production costs.

AMC is scheduled to also release a “Breaking Bad” prequel entitled “Better Call Saul”, this coming February.

AMC Networks Incorporated is also in the works of producing a companion zombie show to “The Walking Dead” that will feature how the same zombie apocalypse in the show’s storyline are affecting other countries.

AMC’s overall shares increased to 1.3% to a value of $60.74 during the early NASDAQ trading last Thursday.

Stocks from Spirit Aerosystems remain impressive as they record another high this third quarter of 2014. The market is hoping for an increase from this company since they have been performing so well in the past months. However, the results were more than what they have foreseen.

They have reached as much as five percent in their total shares. This is far from the usual 2 to 3 percent experienced by the other companies in the same field.

They are heavily reluctant on their products related to their main customer – Boeing. They have improved so much of their inventory to make sure that this huge jet company gets its money’s worth.

Also, another factor that could be tied up to this is the increase of demand from Boeing. Recently, they have shifted from manufacturing their own products. They have resulted to outsourcing since it is more convenient and more efficient to do so.

This has given Spirit Aerosystems to step up and put up with more and more impressive numbers. This year, they have recorded a steady increase in their portfolio. The best thing about this is that they are expecting more come 2015. Everybody is watching out if they will still belong to the highlights shown by the market by the start of next year.

The famed banana company Chiquita is now under the hands of the two Brazilian companies Cutrale and Safra after they won the bitter battle against other bidders and sealed the deal with a $1.3 billion acquisition.

It can be recalled that there have been a number of rejections made by Chiquita before the final deal with Cutrale and Safra. There was even a merging offer made by the big company Fyffes but it didn’t the approval of the highly valued banana brand.

Fyffes is one of the famed fruit companies of today with the main goal of bringing the business to Dublin to make sure that its revenues would not be affected by the high tax rates.

Out of the many bidders, Chiquita arranged to sell the 144-year old company to the head of one of the leading orange juice groups in Brazil that is Jose Luis Cutrale and to the billionaire banker Joseph Safra. Each share was sold at $14.50 which valued Chiquita at $1.3 billion with debts already included.

The success of the Brazilian companies in winning the deal with the banana group brings an end to its 3-month long battle against Fyffes of Ireland that intended to close a merger with Chiquita.

Catering to the increasing demand of people who want to eat healthy products will be a big challenge for Cutrale-Safra who won the bid but they are looking out on ways to help them achieve success.

For the side of Chiquita, the acquisition that will complete by 2015 shows a surprise twist for the company which the Latin Americans hated for a long time already as it was long seen as a symbol of US repression and imperialism.

Oshkosh Corporation takes no excuses and continues with a good performance as shown in its third quarter ratings.

The meltdown experienced by other businesses in the same field is not an excuse for Oshkosh Corporation to do great in its ratings. They have recorded a relatively higher increase for their cement products.

The increase that was tallied was at 6.2 percent. In dollars, this is already worth 47.69. This is way too much beyond the expectations considering that the market for this industry is not doing well as of the moment.

Their sales for tactical vehicles were the primary movers for the change in the numbers. They were able to record $77.8 million in their total. This is an increase of 93 cents per share for the company. This is way too high compared to the 40 cent per share made by the others.

Oshkosh Corporation is not contented with the increase. They have released their agenda for the coming year and it clearly shows that they are out for more. They are expecting movements in the revenue such as a 100-million dollar increase in their net income. This could really be a challenge for the company since a single error could lead to a lot of financial problems.

ConocoPhillips has become more impressive in its third quarter outing after its decision to sell out units from its Nigeria base. The total increase that the company has experienced so far is equivalent to $71.32. This is already .8 percent of their total records.

This is also despite the plummeting of the prices of oil. Recently, the industry experienced a 20 percent melt down in the prices. This affects the trade because of the more expensive stocks that they have on hand. They will have to deal with the losses that will accrue in case the old expensive stock will be sold at a lower price.

The company is also expected to lose by $700 million dollars this year. They are projected to use up as much as $16 billion. The huge difference was recorded in the same time last year.

The reason for their cut portfolios is their new investments in relatively the same field. They have been looking at equipment and units for shale drilling. This is located in Southern Texas, in Eagle Ford exactly.

There is still a lot of chances under the pockets of this company. They have already predicted their numbers to go up come 2015. The only identifying circumstance right now would be the players around and the prices.

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