7/28/09 am Verizon 2Q Profits Falls, 8,000 Jobs Go

Post #24 The following is brought to you by Intellivest Securities Research, Inc. The following is not intended as advertising by a broker-dealer and is not a research report. Click at the 7/23/09 Blog to find a description of this week's profiled company, AXP American Express Company. AXP was Monday's biggest loser, dropping 1.13 to close at $28.38 down 3.83% with volume of 23,110,257 on NYSE.

The Dow closed Monday at 9108.51 up 15.27 or 0.17% from Friday's close of 9093.24. Of the 30 Dow Companies: 17 gained and 18 declined with the biggest gainer being CAT Caterpillar $42.86 +0.86 2.05% 14,309,600 NYSE and, as mentioned above, the biggest loser being AXP Amex $28.38 -1.13 3.83% 23,110,257 NYSE.

A read of Monday's 7/27/09 print editions of: Wall Street Journal, Investors Business Daily, Financial Times, USA Today, and Atl Journal Const yielded the following stories about Dow Jones 30 component companies:

The current divisor for the Dow found at today's page C4 of The Wall St. Jrnl is .132319125 unchanged.

VZ Verizon's 2Q profits fell 21% after cost cuting efforts failed to keep pace with falling revenue. VZ will be slashing more than 8,000 employee and contractor jobs. VZ earned $1.48 billion or 0.52 per share down from $1.88 bill or 0.66 a year earlier per AJC pA7 and WSJ pB1 where it compares VZ's layoff of 3% of its workforce with AT&T's 12,000 laid off employees that equals 4% of its work force. VZ closed at 31 down 0.50 Monday. Similar theme at pB3 NYTimes; at page 1, front page of Fin Times and front page of Fin Times "Companies & Markets" p11 with a story "Verizon to axe 8,000 more jobs - Drive to cut costs and boost sagging margins" & also Fin Time sp0 in "Wall Street" column. Inv Bus Daily's story at pA4: "Verizon's Q2 Profit Declines But Beats Views By A Penney - Rival AT&T iPhone Took Users - Verizon Wireless looking forward to new BlackBerry, Motorola Android handsets" and says VZ ended the quarter with 87.7 million custoemrs, ahed of No,. 2 T AT&T's 79.6 milllion customers.

WSJ lead story "Marketplace" pB1 says Ben Silverman, co-chairman of GE's NBC Entertainment and Universal Media Stuidios is leaving NBC to join a venture with Barry Diller's IAC/InterActive Corp. This is alos lead story in NYTimes "Business Day" at B1 that says he will be succeeded by Jeff Gaspin who now oversees NBC's cable channels. WSJ pC1 "Ahead of the Tape" has a story "Propsoed Overhaul Puts a New Spin On GE" that says GE's finance unit has benefitted from gov. support but there is concern that it could come with a price: new regulations that would put tighter oversight over GE Capital that has assets of $651 billion. Similar story at Fin Times p14 "Silverman quits NBC after two years." USA p3B "Programming exec leaves NBC Universal - Network struggles to keep up" says Silverman's leaving prime time's No. 4 network to launch an Internet production firm.

WSJ pC6 "Large Stock Focus" has a story "Verizon Slides 1.6%; BofA, Regions Gain" and under "Stocks in the News" under "...And the Bad News" VZ is charted because a drop in global enterprise revenue sent "a worrisome signal." NYTimes pB8 "Stocks & Bonds" column cites BofA, VZ, and JPM.

WSJ pA3 "US Effort to Modify Mortgages Falters" says an Obama administration effort to reduce home foreclosures by lowering the morgage payments of struggling borrowers isn't working. It says BAC BofAm is only this month beginning to implement the program and JPM JPMorgan said the process takes more time for each applicant than they had thought in an anecdote about a home owner not having a good experience.

Lead story WSJ pC1 "Money & Investing" is "BofA Plans to Cut 10% of Branches - CEO Tells Investors of Pullback; a Break From Two Decades of Growth" says CEO Kenneth Lewis said he is going to shrink BAC's 6,100 branch network by about 10%. Story says BAC holds 12.2% of all US deposits followed by Wells Fargo and JPM JPMorgan Chase.

WSJ pC1 "Late Push, Financials Lift Dow 15.27 Points" credits a 4.6% in BAC Bofam but notes the Dow was held back by VZ's 1.6% drop.

Inv Business Daily pA2 "Rising costs seen hurting Boeing" says BA was downgraded to equal weight by Barclays, which cited significant but as yet undertermined cost overruns in BA's 787 Dreamliner project. BA may have to take a charge against earnings on much of its $100 billion plus 787 backlog. BA closed 42.24 down 0.3%.

Inv Bus Daily's charts at pA9 says IBM "blasted above a 110.74 buy point from a yearlong cup-with-handle base."

Inv Bus Daily pB3 has a story about Carter's a seller of clothes and says it sell through WMT WalMart among others.

THE FOLLOWING WAS PUBLISHED IN MONDAY'S BLOGS; POSTS #22 & #23:

Monday's Closing Dow closing numbers:

Symb/Last/Change/% Change/Vol./Market

T $25.73 +0.28 1.1% 26,226,400 NYSE
AA $11.3 +0.28 2.54% 31,246,855 NYSE
AXP $28.38 -1.13 3.83% 23,110,257 NYSE
BAC $13.09 +0.58 4.64% 239,174,934 NYSE
BA $42.24 -0.13 0.31% 5,668,332 NYSE
CAT $42.86 +0.86 2.05% 14,309,600 NYSE
CVX $68.85 +0.42 0.61% 7,775,113 NYSE
CSCO $21.84 -0.04 0.18% 31,567,003 NASDAQ-GS
KO $49.52 +0.16 0.32% 8,103,336 NYSE
DD $30.36 -0.32 1.07% 6,072,393 NYSE
DIS $26.45 +0.13 0.49% 9,766,899 NYSE
XOM $72.75 +0.46 0.64% 17,192,866 NYSE
GE $12.32 +0.29 2.41% 76,701,667 NYSE
HPQ $41.84 +0.12 0.29% 10,675,534 NYSE
HD $25.16 -0.16 0.63% 13,401,694 NYSE
INTC $19.47 +0.11 0.57% 42,289,301 NASDAQ-GS
IBM $117.63 -0.01 0.01% 5,063,867 NYSE
JPM $38.13 +0.21 0.55% 30,156,193 NYSE
JNJ $61.27 -0.24 0.39% 7,923,037 NYSE
KFT $28.26 +0.14 0.5% 7,621,564 NYSE
MCD $55.97 -0.11 0.2% 7,776,970 NYSE
MRK $30.77 -0.22 0.71% 20,045,051 NYSE
MSFT $23.11 -0.34 1.45% 80,838,132 NASDAQ-GS
PFE $16.62 +0.14 0.85% 47,367,688 NYSE
PG $55.78 -0.06 0.11% 6,815,073 NYSE
MMM $69.91 +0.49 0.71% 4,151,609 NYSE
TRV $43.54 +0.32 0.74% 3,118,684 NYSE
UTX $52.11 -0.12 0.23% 6,076,701 NYSE
VZ $31 0 -.50 1.59% 19,117,592 NYSE
WMT $48.97 +0.03 0.06% 14,257,043 NYSE

The current divisor for the Dow found at today's page C4 of The Wall St. Jrnl is .132319125 unchanged.

Monday's Dow closing numerator was 1205.23 up 2.02 from Friday's Dow closing numerator of 1203.21. This is the sum of all 30 closing prices. A short cut to the Dow numerator is to multiply the closing Dow by the Divisor.

Now, if you divide the Dow numerator increase of 2.02 by the divisor you get 15.27, the increase in Monday's Dow numerator.

The average closing price (the closing numerator divided by 30) of Monday's Dow Jones was 40.17 up 0.06 from Friday's average closing price of 40.11. The median closing price of Monday's Dow Jones was 34.45 down 0.26 from Friday's Dow Jones median closing price of 34.71.

The highest closing price Monday was IBM $117.63 -0.01 0.01% 5,063,867 NYSE and the lowest closing price Monday again was Alcoa AA $11.3 +0.28 2.54% 31,246,855 NYSE.

The lowest volume Monday was again TRV Travelers $43.54 +0.32 0.74% 3,118,684 NYSE and the highest volume was $13.09 +0.58 4.64% 239,174,934 NYSE.

If Monday morning before the market opened you had purchased $100 of each of the Dow 30 shares (assuming you could buy fractional shares and assuming no transaction costs) and sold at the close you would have made $180 ($120,510 - $120,330).