American Eagle Outfitters sued Citigroup Global Markets, accusing it of fraudulently inducing American Eagle to buy $258 million worth of auction rate securities that it now can sell only at a significant loss, if at all.
Corporate earnings slump to continue next fiscal: Citi
8 minutes ago - Asia Pulse Data Source
After witnessing the worst quarter in six years, corporate India is likely to see the earnings slowdown to continue in the next fiscal, along with falling demand putting pressure on the sales growth, global financial major Citigroup says.
"Currently, we are clearly not as optimistic, (We) forecast negative one per cent earnings growth in FY10," Citigroup's research arm analysts said in a strategy report.
India Inc suffered a decline in earning growth for the first time in six years, with Sensex companies' earnings growth (excluding oil firms) declining 4.5 per cent and BSE-500 index firms suffering a slump of 16 per cent in the third quarter this fiscal.
The report stated that the December quarter of FY '09 has been "decisively worse" than the quarter ended September, 2008, in terms of sales, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) and profits.
The Sensex firms' earnings have dropped sharply from 12 per cent growth in second quarter this fiscal to a negative 4.5 per cent in the December quarter -- one of the highest falls in the recent past.
"It looks only a tad better ahead... We forecast a negative one per cent earnings growth into the next year. The last time earnings fell (2001, full year), they bounced back sharply in the next year, our numbers suggest it will be different this time," Citi analysts pointed out. The report further said that Citi sees further pressures on sales growth ahead, due to falling demand and a deflationary environment following the beyond-expectations sales slump in the third quarter, on falling oil and commodity prices.
The broad market performance in terms of the BSE-500 index companies in the third quarter showed the extent of the slowdown with sales growth sharply down to nine per cent compared to 38 per cent last quarter, involving key sectors -- real estate, hotels and commodities.
Moreover, most other sectors are also feeling the pain on interest costs and tight liquidity, it added.
Citi analysts further revealed that margins seem to be improving gradually for non-financials sequentially, but not yet for auto, real estate and commodity sectors.
"Into the next year, we expect a lot of companies to de-grow... And overall earnings growth concentration in a few companies should be very high," the analysts said in the report.
-----------
Keine Kauf Empfehlung!!
In der Vielfalt der Möglichkeiten und Antworten liegt der Schlüssel und die Weisheit der Massen.