Earnings

TOKYO (Reuters) - The Nikkei share average surged to a fresh 5-1/2 year high on Monday, buoyed by further weakness in the yen and optimism over the growth outlook after the Japanese government raised its assessment of the economy for the first time in two...

Macy's Inc. reported higher first-quarter net income and gains in a critical sales metric as it took business from rival department store chains. The company also raised its dividend by 25 percent. Macy's shares closed up 2.5 percent, near a year high....

Central Virginia Bankshares Inc., parent company for Central Virginia Bank, said it is open to all strategic alternatives as it struggles to deal with payments related to its participation in the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program. That could...

The dull global economy and falling currencies in Europe and Japan are cutting into sales at Donaldson Co., which reported a lackluster third quarter Friday that missed Wall Street expectations. The Bloomington-based maker of filtration systems for...

By John Kozey May 17 (Reuters) - (The author is a writer for Alpha Now, Thomson Reuters' online home for investment insight. The views expressed are his own. Visitfor more.) Investors are pushing sector rotation toward more cyclical sectors and the...

U.S. Steel is spending hundreds of millions of dollars installing powerful software intended to help it manage its business more efficiently, a project that began in 2007 and that chairman and CEO John P. Surma says won't be completed until 2016....

Buoyed by the billion-dollar box-office blockbusters “Skyfall” and “The Hobbit:  An Unexpected Journey,” MGM Holdings Inc., the parent of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., posted first-quarter net income of $57.4 million. That was more...

M&F Bancorp Inc. reported Thursday that it had a $49,000 loss in the first quarter compared with net income of $82,000 in the first quarter of 2012. M&F, based in Durham, has a branch in Winston-Salem. Excluding a preferred stock dividend, the bank...

* FTSEurofirst 300 down 0.1 percent * Zurich Insurance falls 1.2 percent after Q1 miss * Richemont surges after proposing dividend hike By David Brett LONDON, May 16 (Reuters) - Weak earnings from Zurich Insurance Group kept a lid on European shares...

SINGAPORE, May 16 (Reuters) - Singapore Airlines Ltd , which is expanding in the low-cost segment, reported a weaker-than-expected rise of nearly 13 percent in full-year net income and said it was cutting capacity between April and June in a sluggish...

By Sujata Rao LONDON, May 16 (Reuters) - A broad collapse of company profits in the developing world shows no sign of abating, forcing investors to tilt portfolios towards sectors such as healthcare or consumer goods where margins are more robust....

* Correlations falling across equities * Gap between cheap and expensive is narrower * Long-short hedge funds, earnings momentum to benefit By Simon Jessop LONDON, May 16 (Reuters) - Company earnings should become a more useful guide to European share...