World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. (WWE) recently reported its third quarter results. The company posted a robust earnings growth of nearly 68% to $8.9 million from $5.3 million in the year-ago quarter. Earnings per share came in at 12 cents, compared to 7 cents last year and surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 33%, or 3 cents.   The Stamford, CT-based company’s revenues grew by 2.3% to $111.3 million, compared to $108.8 million last year. In terms of segments, Live and Televised Entertainment, the flagship segment, recorded a 13.4% year-over-year expansion in revenues to $77.9 million. The growth was driven by higher average attendance, increase in international events and higher television rights fees received primarily due to a new WWE Superstars television show.   Consumer Products segment fell 13.5% to $23 million reflecting a reduction in royalties on toys and videogames coupled with lower magazine subscription revenues. Digital Media ...

Pitney Bowes Inc. (PBI) reported earnings per diluted share from continuing operations of 55 cents, compared with 67 cents in the prior year. This was higher than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 54 cents. Earnings reflect the negative impacts of 1 cent per diluted share associated with currency and 1 cent per diluted share from incremental pension costs when compared with the prior year. Revenue for the quarter was $1.36 billion compared with $1.55 billion in the prior year, a decline of 12%. A stronger dollar reduced revenue by 2% year-over-year. The sustained nature of the recessionary environment is also driving some fundamental changes in the way businesses and customers connect, communicate and complete transactions in the global marketplace. Companies in most industries still have limited visibility and uncertain outlooks resulting in rising unemployment and ongoing caution about capital expenditures. These factors have ...

U.S. crude oil fell over 3 percent to below $70 a barrel on Friday as U.S. equities struggled for traction and raised fears about the economy and a recovery in energy demand.

U.S. crude for October delivery fell $2.20 to $69.74 by 1:24 p.m. EDT (1724 GMT) after rising to $72.90 in choppy trading. London Brent crude fell $2.10 to $67.76 a barrel.

“Crude put in a high for the week, but there was no follow-through and the dollar and S&P turned around and that helped pull crude back,” said Gene McGillian, analyst at Tradition Energy in Stamford, Connecticut.

U.S. stocks were hampered by profit taking after five days of gains and the longest winning streak since November which helped boost crude prices earlier in the week.

Analysts and traders say that current oil prices reflect attitudes in the market rather than fundamentals.

Data released Thursday by the U.S. government showed petroleum product inventories, including heating oil

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MetroPCS (PCS), a leading provider of unlimited pre-paid wireless service in the US, has reportedly expanded its New York City area service to include additional markets in the Tri-State region. The company has extended its unlimited service footprint to include Long Island, North Central New Jersey, White Plains and New Rochelle in New York, and Stamford and Bridgeport in Connecticut. This expansion represents a part of MetroPCS’ ongoing initiative to increase its penetration in the lucrative Northeast region. The company entered Las Vegas and Philadelphia during 2008 and launched its low-cost unlimited wireless service in New York and Boston in February 2009, representing a major business expansion. MetroPCS (PCS) offers a broad range of wireless broadband services (under the MetroPCS brand) in the selected metropolitan areas in the US, leveraging its proprietary code division multiple access (CDMA) technology based network. The company sells its products ...

Oil prices fell more than 1 percent to $63 a barrel today, Tuesday, as growing uncertainty over an economic recovery spurred investor risk aversion.  A member of U.S. President Barack Obama’s economic advisory panel said the world’s top oil consumer should plan to possibly provide a second round of stimulus funds to prop up the economy, implying that recovery is still far off.

U.S. crude futures traded down $1.01 to $63.04 a barrel by 1:13 p.m. EDT (1713 GMT) as investors sought safer havens. London Brent crude fell 74 cents to $63.31 a barrel.

“The worries are that the pace of the economic recovery hasn’t materialized the way that people who plunged into the commodity markets thought, and now they are running for the exits,” said Gene McGillian, an analyst at Tradition Energy in Stamford, Connecticut. “The question is how far they will run.”

Safe-haven currencies such as the dollar gained on the concerns about

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While everyone else has been focused on the banks’ stress tests and how much government is spending to bail out troubled “too big to fails,” a disturbing trend on the other side of the equation is now emerging: how much (or rather, how little) the U.S. government is receiving in tax revenues.

After combing through the past 25 editions of the “Monthly Treasury Statement of Receipts and Outlays of the United States Government,” which is compiled and published by the Treasury Department’s Financial Management Service, we created the following chart.

Here’s what’s going on:

•    In 2007 and 2008, government tax revenues averaged about $633.15 billion per quarter. For the first quarter of 2009, however, the numbers just in tell us that tax receipts totaled only about $442.39 billion — a decline of 30%.

•    Looking to confirm the trend, we compared the data for April

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The base metals were mixed again on Wednesday. Copper was down in the pre-dawn hours, falling below $1.99, but pulled itself back over the $2 mark as the day wore on, and finished at $2.0133/lb., down 2 cents.

Nickel was also down early, rallied during the New York morning, but fell off again late to close at $5.146/lb., down 5½ cents. Zinc followed a similar path, ending at $0.6443/lb., down a half-cent. Aluminum did make it back into positive territory, adding just short of a penny, to $0.6452/lb., while lead was little changed, adding less than a quarter-cent, to $0.6674/lb.

Copper tried to fight its way back to green numbers, but wound up with the biggest cumulative 3-day loss since January, as Wall Street’s very choppy day set the stage for wild swings in the industrial metals and, ultimately, recession fears prevailed.

Patrick Chidley, an analyst at Barnard Jacobs Mellet

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The base metals were mixed on Tuesday. Copper rose and fell in small fits and starts yesterday, with the final move being to the downside as it finished at $1.702/lb., down 2¾ cents.

Nickel was in positive territory to start the New York day, but fell off sharply to mid-morning, after which it regained a little lost ground to close at $4.5185/lb., down just over a penny. Zinc ended modestly lower, at $0.5496/lb., down better than three-quarters of a cent. Aluminum had a modestly higher day, adding a third of a cent, to $0.6077/lb., while lead pushed higher, tacking on a penny and a third, to $0.6006/lb.

Copper eased off of the four-month high reached on Monday as investors decided to book profits from the recent runup, and despite the encouraging housing starts numbers that offered a smidgeon of hope to that embattled sector. There was some technical selling

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OPEC cuts 2.2 million bpd of crude output… Dealers say record cut not enough to offset demand slide

Oil prices dropped 3 percent on Wednesday after OPEC announced a record supply cut that dealers said may fail to offset slumping world energy demand.

U.S. crude oil prices fell $1.40 to $42.20 a barrel by 1:35 p.m. EST (1835 GMT), after dipping to a more than four year low of $40.20 earlier in the trading session. London Brent rose 66 cents to $47.31 per barrel.

Oil prices have fallen more than $100 since July as a global financial crisis cuts into consumer and industrial fuel demand, and top forecasters are now predicting the first decline in world energy use since 1983.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, eager to push prices back up, announced on Wednesday an agreement to cut 2.2 million barrels per

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Industry PulseHedge Fund Industry Pulse Check(http://HedgeFundBlogger.com) I was on the phone yesterday with a hedge fund investor who said he simply could not keep up with all of the news coming out on hedge funds without spending his whole work day tracking it. He wanted to know what to receive a series of updates within a single post.Here is a collection of quotes on the current state of the hedge fund industry:- Hedge-fund manager David Tepper entered the third quarter with $3.1 billion of U.S. stocks and exited with $648 million, selling most holdings to reduce risk and raise cash as carnage spread across the financial markets. “We moved a lot out early because we didn’t want to lose money,” said Tepper, 51, president of Appaloosa Management LP in Chatham, New Jersey. The firm, which switched some money ...