TOKYO (AP) — Sony’s profit for the quarter through December edged up 11% on healthy sales from its film division, including the new Spider-Man movie, the Japanese electronics and entertainment company said Wednesday. Tokyo-based Sony Corp. recorded a 346 billion yen ($3 billion) profit for the fiscal third quarter, up from 310.7 billion yen the…
By Ludwig Burger FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Novartis forecast its sales and core operating profit would grow at a mid-single-digit rate this year, as the Swiss pharmaceuticals group nears a decision on whether to keep or sell its generics business Sandoz. The pharmaceuticals company in October raised the prospect of divesting Sandoz after years of revamping the…
By Jesús Aguado MADRID (Reuters) -Spain’s Santander said on Wednesday a release of 750 million euros ($845 million) in pandemic-related provisions and a strong performance in the United States and Britain drove an eight-fold rise in fourth-quarter net profit compared to a year earlier. The coronavirus crisis forced banks in Europe to set aside costly…
MOSCOW (AP) — The prison sentence imposed a year ago on leading Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was a severe blow to Russia’s opposition — and then the situation got worse. Over the past 12 months, scores of activists, independent journalists and rights advocates were targeted with raids, detained and designated as terrorists and foreign agents….
BERLIN (Reuters) – Self-charging hybrid cars, which operate on both an internal combustion engine and a battery, outsold diesel cars in Europe for the first time in 2021, albeit by just 48 vehicles, data showed on Wednesday. One in 11 cars sold were battery-electric, the data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association showed, totalling just…
TOKYO (Reuters) – Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc (SMFG), Japan’s second-largest lender by assets, reported on Wednesday a net profit of 624.8 billion yen ($5.45 billion) in the nine months through December, up 44% from the same period a year earlier. SMFG kept its full-year profit view through March at 670 billion yen, which compared…
By David Shepardson, Hyunjoo Jin and Joseph White WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Self-driving vehicle companies from Tesla Inc to General Motors Co’s Cruise are racing to start making money with their technology, outrunning efforts by regulators and Congress to write rules of the road for robot-driven vehicles. On Tuesday, Cruise said that SoftBank Group Corp…
BANGKOK (AP) — Shares were mixed in Asia on Thursday as the latest batch of company earnings reports kept investors in a buying mood, driving gains on Wall Street. Markets in China remained closed for Lunar New Year holidays. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index lost 1.1% to 27,244.12 while the S&P/ASX 200 gave up 0.3% to…
By Chris Taylor NEW YORK (Reuters) – Low inflation had spoiled U.S. investors for so long that last year’s sudden surge came as a shock. As those who lived through the late 1970s and early 1980s can attest, inflation can be a “portfolio killer” because it erodes purchasing power. Inflation revved up to 7% in…
By Yuka Obayashi TOKYO (Reuters) -Oil prices climbed on Wednesday toward last week’s seven-year highs as a draw in U.S. crude stocks confirmed strong demand and a lack of supply, but investors remained cautious ahead of an OPEC+ meeting later in the day. Brent crude rose 17 cents, or 0.2%, to $89.33 a barrel by…
