Acxiom to discuss 3rd-quarter results
Acxiom Corp. will hold a conference call today to discuss its fiscal 2016 third-quarter financial results, which the company will release after markets close.
The conference call will be held at 4 p.m., and a live broadcast can be accessed online at the investor section of Acxiom's website, acxiom.com.
Analysts expect the Little Rock-based company to report earnings per share of 12 cents for the third quarter.
Acxiom had a profit of $10.7 million during its second quarter of fiscal 2016.
-- Jessica Seaman
January survey: Firms add 205,000 jobs
WASHINGTON -- U.S. businesses added a solid 205,000 jobs last month, lifted by robust gains in services and construction and extending a streak of steady hiring, according to a private survey.
Payroll processor ADP said Wednesday that financial services, retailers and professional services firms also hired at a steady pace. The figures suggest that companies focused on the domestic economy remain healthy despite gyrations in the financial markets and slowing global growth.
Manufacturers have suffered from the strong dollar, which makes U.S. goods more expensive overseas, and did not add any jobs last month.
"All this turmoil in financial markets hasn't done any damage yet that I can see," Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, said. "That is a very good sign." Moody's helps compile the ADP data.
The data come just two days before the government's official jobs report for January. Economists forecast that that report will show employers added 200,000 jobs and the unemployment rate remained 5 percent.
The ADP survey covers only private businesses and frequently diverges from the official figures.
-- The Associated Press
Google Fiber to give free Net to poor
Google Fiber says it's going to give away its high-speed Internet service to thousands of low-income Americans across the country who can't afford gigabit broadband. Starting with its Kansas City market, Google Fiber eventually plans to wire "select" public housing buildings in all of the cities where it operates, the company said.
Service was to be switched on Wednesday for the West Bluff Townhomes community in Kansas City, Mo. Ultimately, as many as 1,300 households in Kansas City, Mo., and Kansas City, Kan., will get a free subscription to Google Fiber's 1,000 megabits-per-second service, enabling those users to download the equivalent of an HD movie in about 7 seconds.
By comparison, most Americans receive an average download speed of 12 Mbps, with peaks speeds of 57 Mbps, according to the networking firm Akamai.
On the basis of the current cost of a gigabit subscription, Google Fiber will be giving away more than $1 million a year worth of Internet service to Kansas City residents alone.
-- The Washington Post
Fewest in 8 years drop TV from Comcast
NEW YORK -- Comcast is trumpeting its best year for traditional TV services in nearly a decade, even though it continues to lose TV subscribers.
As the number of traditional TV customers declines across the industry, Comcast is stemming its losses by attracting them with new TV-Internet packages while keeping TV customers around for longer with the help of a fancier cable box. The company also says recent investments in customer service, long a blemish on its reputation, have helped.
Comcast said Wednesday that it added 89,000 TV customers in the last three months of 2015, which it said was its best quarter since the October-December period of 2006. For the full year, Comcast lost 36,000 TV customers, the smallest drop since its annual string of TV customer losses that began in 2007.
Other cable companies are improving, too, even as cable bills rise overall and people spend more time watching video online. Time Warner Cable posted a small gain of 32,000 TV customers for 2015, the first year it's added TV subscribers since 2006.
-- The Associated Press
Amazon mum on bookstore reports
NEW YORK -- Amazon is declining to comment on reports it may be planning to open more bookstores.
In a call with analysts on Tuesday, Sandeep Mathrani, the chief executive officer of mall operator General Growth Properties, said in an offhand comment related to a question about Christmas traffic that Amazon had plans to open 300 or 400 bookstores.
A New York Times report, citing unnamed sources Wednesday, said Amazon could open more bookstores in the future, but at a more modest pace.
Amazon said it does not comment on rumors or speculation. General Growth Properties did not respond to a request for comment.
Amazon operates one bookstore in Seattle and about five staffed pickup locations for textbooks at universities, with plans for two more in 2016.
Shares of Amazon.com Inc. dropped $21.03, or 3.8 percent, to close Wednesday at $531.07.
-- The Associated Press
Merck tops profit forecast; not so sales
Merck & Co. posted an 87 percent drop in fourth-quarter profit compared with last year, when the drugmaker had a huge gain from the sale of its consumer health business. It beat Wall Street profit forecasts but came up short on revenue.
The strong dollar and increasing pricing pressure and competition for some of its older medicines cut sales of some of Merck's top sellers. That was partly offset by climbing sales of Merck's newest medicines and its top vaccines. Revenue, however, dipped 3 percent.
Merck is rebuilding its hepatitis-C business and building up its cancer- and hospital-drug franchises as it shifts to a new product cycle after its latest restructuring program. That cut more than $2.5 billion in annual spending.
The maker of diabetes pill Januvia and groundbreaking cancer-drug Keytruda, said Wednesday that net income was $976 million, or 35 cents per share. A year earlier, net income was $7.32 billion, or $2.54 per share, boosted by a gain from selling Merck's consumer business to Bayer AG for $11.2 billion.
-- The Associated Press
Business on 02/04/2016