Symmetry Medical, Inc. (SMA) reported third-quarter earnings per share of 15 cents that came in a penny shy of the Zacks Consensus Estimate. However, earnings came ahead of last year’s figure of 7 cents.   Sales   Total sales in the reported quarter declined 22% year over year to $87.2 million. The decline was due to lower customer demand across all the business segments as a result of the economic turbulence. Patients are deferring elective procedures as they are not life sustaining in nature.   Instruments revenues declined 15% year over year to $41.3 million. Implants revenues declined 23% year over year to $24.2 million. Both Cases and Other sales registered a decline of 29% and 40%, respectively.    Margins   Symmetry registered an expansion in margins due to its strong cost-cutting initiatives. Operational improvements at the Sheffield, UK unit also helped in improving margins. Gross margin ...

Group 1 Automotive (GPI) revealed a profit of $16.8 million or 71 cents per share in the third quarter, an improvement from $8.2 million or 37 cents per share in the same quarter of the previous year. With this, the company marginally exceeded the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 70 cents per share. However, weakness in the auto industry reduced Group 1’s revenue by 13% to $1.25 billion. The U.S. Government’s “Cash for Clunkers" cash incentive program for fuel-efficient vehicles helped the auto retailer gain in the same-store gross margin. In the quarter, same-store gross margin improved to 17% from 16% in the prior-year quarter. Group 1 retailed 25,057 new vehicles during the quarter, of which 4,874 vehicles were channeled through the Clunkers program. Group 1’s margin improvement in used vehicle as well as in parts and service business also helped gain the overall margin. Same-store used ...

News Corp. (NWS) recently reported its first quarter results. Earnings of 22 cents a share surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 17 cents and climbed 10% from 20 cents posted in the prior-year quarter.   Total revenues tumbled 4.1% year on year to $7,199 million due to fall in Television (down 7.7%), Direct Broadcast Satellite Television (down 4.3%), Newspapers and Information Services (down 17.7%), Book Publishing (down 1.6%) and Other (down 44.4%) segments, offset by rise in Filmed Entertainment (up 20.8%), Cable Network Programming (up 10.5%) and Integrated Marketing Services (up 3.1%) segments.   However, significant cost-cutting initiatives taken by management and robust performance at Filmed Entertainment and Cable Network Programming segments have boosted the operating income by 9.3% to $1,042 million. Management expects fiscal 2010 operating income to increase within a high-single digit to low double-digit percentage range.   Filmed Entertainment posted a record first quarter operating ...

Murphy Oil Corporation (MUR) posted earnings from continuing operations of 98 cents per share in the third quarter, almost in line with the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 97 cents. However, results were significantly below earnings of $3.04 reported last year, largely driven by lower commodity prices in the Exploration & Production (E&P) segment accompanied by lower earnings from the Refining & Marketing (R&M) operations.  Earnings from Murphy’s E&P business declined 65% from a year ago, primarily based on lower oil and gas prices, higher production costs and depreciation. Exploration expenses improved 55% to $37.9 million in the quarter versus $83.4 million last year, primarily attributable to lower dry hole costs in the Gulf of Mexico and offshore Malaysia, and lower undeveloped lease amortization expense for the Tupper properties. R&M earnings also fell by 57% from last year due to weaker U.S. retail marketing margins and U.K. refining ...

There was a time when the term “fuel cell” was linked almost exclusively with America’s space program. The fuel cells in space used hydrogen and oxygen to generate electricity for manned spacecraft, with the side benefit of producing drinking water. Few people will forget the near loss of Apollo 13 when a short circuit ignited oxygen inside a fuel cell tank. The resulting explosion crippled the craft, which eventually made it back to earth thanks to a level of creativity and intensity on the part of the crew and ground support personnel that can only be described as heroic. But fuel cells were around long before all that, and are now taking on a major role in more down-to-earth applications.

Fuel cells are electrochemical devices that convert a fuel, such as methanol or hydrogen, into electricity without burning. The principle behind the

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – November 4, 2009 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: France Telecom (FTE), Apple (AAPL), Telefonica (TEF), Vodafone (VOD) and Deutsche Telekom (DT).

Get the most recent insight from Zacks Equity Research with the free Profit from the Pros newsletter: http://at.zacks.com/?id=5513

Here are highlights from Tuesday’s AnalystBlog:

Orange UK Confirms iPhone Launch

France Telecom’s (FTE) subsidiary Orange UK has revealed the iPhone launch date as the carrier will officially unveil the iconic handset in the UK on Nov. 10, 2009. Moreover, the operator has also released pricing and tariff details for iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS, which will

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France Telecom’s (FTE) subsidiary Orange UK has revealed the iPhone launch date as the carrier will officially unveil the iconic handset in the UK on Nov. 10, 2009. Moreover, the operator has also released pricing and tariff details for iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS, which will be sold through direct retail distribution channels including on-line stores, shops and telesales channels. Orange will sell the iPhone to consumer and business customers through various price plans such as "pay as you go" (PAYG) and "pay monthly" basis. Under the PAYG plan, customers who top up £50 ($82) at purchase will get the iPhone 3G for £343 ($563), iPhone 3GS (16GB) for £440 ($722) and iPhone 3GS (32GB) for £539 ($884), along with 250MB of data usage per month and unlimited Wi-Fi (wireless broadband) access for a year. Under the "pay monthly" option, iPhone 8GB, 16GB and 32GB models ...

Yesterday, the Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (BK) completed two acquisitions - Insight Investment Management Limited and Pinnacle Arbitrage Compliance. It acquired Insight Investment Management Limited from Lloyds Banking Group plc (LYG) Insight Investment specializes in Liability Driven Investment (LDI) solutions, active Fixed Income and Absolute Return and is based in London. Its clients include some of the UK's largest pension schemes, corporations, insurance companies and local authorities, along with a growing number of non-UK clients and some of the best known financial services and intermediary companies. BNY Mellon also completed its previously announced acquisition of Pinnacle Arbitrage Compliance, one of the largest independent U.S. firms devoted exclusively to compliance services for tax-exempt bond issuers and conduit borrowers. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. With these acquisitions, BNY Mellon will have more than $1 trillion in assets under ...

Well, it is not as if I relish rubbing salt into old wounds, but this quote from the a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8bb0da5a-c7dc-11de-8ba8-00144feab49a.html"latest piece by Ben Hall in Paris and Ralph Atkins in today's Financial Times/a is just too good to resist.br /br /blockquoteFrench manufacturing output rose at its fastest rate for nine years, according to a survey on Monday, confirming that France has become the economic powerhouse of continental Europe. Purchasing managers’ indices for manufacturing showed France performing significantly better than the continent’s other main economies – thanks to robust domestic demand./blockquotebr /br /a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SvASaIFOk2I/AAAAAAAAPjI/Xa0wjOVFc3A/s1600-h/france+manufacturing.png"img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 213px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399836193272533858" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SvASaIFOk2I/AAAAAAAAPjI/Xa0wjOVFc3A/s400/france+manufacturing.png" //abr /br /Plenty of food for thought in this paragraph it seems to me. As a href="http://spaineconomy.blogspot.com/2009/10/french-rebound-continues-in-october.html"foreshadowed in this earlier post/a, it is the French economy - and not the German one - which is rebounding sharply, and this ...

Bob has an opinion article in today's edition of the Guardian stressing the importance of linking human rights with foreign relations during David Miliband's visit to Russia this week, and elsewhere in the same paper, Mikhail Khodorkovsky's mother has issued her own appeal to the foreign secretary.

At least one report confirms that Khodorkovsky's case will indeed be discussed.

Miliband has started on this path already, apparently. He met with human rights activists today where, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Libery, he "expressed his concern over the killings of activists of nongovernmental organizations in Russia and the pressure that is being imposed on civil society."

Miliband also pressed Russia to

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