Month: August 2012

M&T Bank Corporation (MTB) maintained its quarterly dividend of 70 cents per share. Shares are lower by about four tenths of a percent.

The Daily Ticker’s Aaron Task talks to Mark Zandi on housing.

In trading on Wednesday, hospital & medical practitioners shares were relative leaders, up on the day by about 3.3%. Leading the group were shares of Sunrise Senior Living (SRZ), up about 59% and shares of Five Star Quality Care (FVE) up about 7.5% on the day.

Dell (DELL) announced that it earned $732 million in the second fiscal quarter on revenue of $14.5 billion, or 42 cents per share, versus a profit of $890 million on revenue of $15.6 billion in the same period last year. The amounts to an eighteen percent decline in profit, and eight percent revenue decline.

Medtronic (NYSE:MDT) posted its quarterly results this morning. The medical device maker posted a first quarter EPS of 85 cents on revenue of $4 billion, higher than the same time last year and in line with analyst expectations.Medtronic has been battling pressure in some of its market segments due to high unemployment and government scrutiny of medical practices. However, the company found a way to find some profit with earnings rising 5.2% from the previous year.Investors are not too excited with the company’s quarterly results though. The company’s stock is trading flat on the day.

Urban Outfitters (NYSE:URBN) announcing its second quarter results this morning. The retailer posted an EPS of 42 cents per share, above the street’s estimate of 33 cents. Revenue for the quarter rose to $676 million, also beating the average analyst estimate of $671.58 million.The boost in profit could be due to the company rehiring co-founder Richard Hayne as chief executive officer this past January. He was brought aboard to turn around Urban’s business after increased discounts caused profits to shrink.Online sales also rose for the quarter with Urban increasing its web-exclusive offerings by 75% from last year. This brought direct-to-consumer sales higher by 30%, which was a big contribution to its profit.Urban Outfitters is surging in early trading, up over 15% to $36.18.

Looks like the sluggish economy isn’t enough to deter travelers from taking a vacation. Americans are expected to travel this Labor Day weekend in the highest numbers since 2008, according to AAA. AAA expects 33 million Americans to either fly or drive for their holiday weekend. That’s up 2.9 percent from last year, despite the fact that gas prices are 4% higher than they were a year ago.Still, consumer confidence is on the rise, and people are looking forward to taking a break from economic worries to have some fun.

This is your Market Close Wrap Up for August 21, 2012. Stocks finished in the red on Tuesday, falling off session highs as Apple losses overtook optimism about Europe. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) lost over 1% on the day just after it made history to become the most valuable company of all time. The tech giant’s valuation reached $623.5 billion yesterday, surpassing Microsoft’s 1999 peak of $613 billion. Some analysts are saying the company could reach the trillion-dollar valuation mark at the rate the company is growing. Oil and Gold trading higher on the day. Oil finished up just over $96 a barrel and Gold surging up $15 to $1,638 an ounce.One of the big winners in today’s session was Urban Outfitters (NYSE:URBN). Its stock was up over 18% due to its positive quarterly results. One of the biggest losers: Yelp (NYSE:YELP). Its shares finished down over 6% as it faces tough competition with other product/travel review sites.Taking a look at where the markets closed today, the Dow lost over 68 points finishing at 13,203. The S&P was down close to five points and the Nasdaq lost almost nine points.For more market updates and analysis of the business world follow us on twitter @FNNOnline or check out our website at fnno.com

Tech stocks pulled the markets lower today, just one day after Apple (AAPL) closed at an all-time high. Shares of Facebook (FB) fell even further today after one of the company’s earliest investors Peter Thiel sold a majority of his shares in the company.

Bargain hunters are wise to pay careful attention to insider buying, because although there are many various reasons for an insider to sell a stock, presumably the only reason they would use their hard-earned dollars to make a purchase, is that they expect to make money. Today we look at two noteworthy recent insider buys.