Balaraja blog

Cisco sales beat Street but margin disappoints

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Network equipment maker Cisco Systems Inc's weaker quarterly margins seemed to confirm investors' fears that growing competition may be forcing the company to cut prices to protect market share.

Shares of Cisco fell more than 7 percent after Cisco Chief Executive John Chambers failed to reassure investors that public sector spending, a major source of concern in prior quarters, would improve. It could weaken in the next few quarters, he said.

On a conference call with investors, Cisco said orders from government agencies, whose weakness had stunned Wall Street late last year, had improved by 7 percent in the quarter.

RBC analyst Mark Sue said the company's gross margin of 62.4 percent was a disappointment. The market had expected a number closer to 63 percent, he said.

"The results were a little bit better than expected on the top line and also better on the bottom with some help from a better tax rate," he said. "However, investors are looking at the gross margins, which declined sequentially."

Cisco's fiscal second-quarter revenue rose 6 percent from a year earlier to $10.41 billion. Analysts had expected $10.23 billion in quarterly revenue, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The company's net profit for the quarter ended January 29 fell to $1.5 billion from $1.9 billion a year earlier. Excluding items, its earnings per share was 37 cents, beating the market's average forecast of 35 cents and the company's own forecast of 32-35 cents.

Cisco forecast revenue in its fiscal third and fourth quarters within range of Wall Street estimates, failing to pull its shares higher.

The company expects revenue for the current third quarter to rise by 4 to 6 percent. It sees fourth-quarter revenue growing 8 to 11 percent. Wall Street analysts estimate 5 percent growth for the third quarter and an 8 percent rise for the fourth.

Cisco is considered one of the sector's prime bellwethers due to the breadth of its customer base which ranges from small U.S. businesses to foreign governments. Also, its last quarter ended in January rather than December like most of its peers, making its results a more up-to-date indicator of technology spending.

(Reporting by Ritsuko Ando; Editing by Richard Chang)

N. Korea's Kim attends New Year concert

SEOUL (AFP) – North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il and his son and heir apparent Kim Jong-Un attended a Lunar New Year concert celebrating the communist state's army and people, official media said Thursday.

Kim Jong-Il, accompanied by senior party, state and army officials, enjoyed the performance by the Unhasu Orchestra, the KCNA news agency said without giving a date for the event.

Performers at the concert -- which featured numbers like "The Korean Nation Is the Best" and "We Love Thee, Socialism" -- represented "the indomitable heroic spirit of the army and people of the DPRK (North Korea) dashing ahead like the wind toward the eminence of a thriving nation," it added.

North Korea in 1967 banned the celebration of traditional Korean holidays as vestiges of feudalism. A holiday to mark Lunar New Year's Day was restored in 1989 and was expanded to a three-day break in 2003.

The news agency reported a festive mood in Pyongyang, with residents dining out and visiting theatres, the zoo or a funfair.

"Working people and school youth and children had folk games and sports and amusement games, conspicuously decorating the capital city on the Lunar New Year's Day," it said.

An "endless stream" of people flocked to the statue of founding president Kim Il-Sung, late father of the current leader, to lay floral baskets, it said.

Ford recalling F-150 pickups to fix door handles

WASHINGTON – Ford Motor Co. recalled nearly 365,000 F-150 pickup trucks in North America on Thursday to fix a problem with the interior door handles that could lead to the doors opening in a crash.

Ford said the recall affects about 280,000 F-150s in the U.S. from the 2009 and 2010 model years built from Jan. 18, 2008, through Nov. 30, 2009. About 68,000 of the popular trucks under recall are in Canada and about 14,000 are in Mexico.

The Dearborn, Mich., company said there have been no crashes or injuries tied to the problem. The F-150 is part of Ford's popular F-Series pickup, the best-selling vehicle in the U.S.

"Ford is committed to safety and is quickly working to address this matter with our customers," said Wes Sherwood, a company spokesman.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on its website that a spring in the interior door handle could break, causing the door to fail to latch properly. If the truck was struck by another vehicle on the side, the government said the door latch could open.

The recall is expected to begin around Feb. 14. Ford said dealers would inspect the trucks and add reinforcements to the spring or replace the side interior door handle module.

Owners can contact Ford at (866) 436-7332.

Cow that escaped slaughterhouse has new adventure

BILLINGS, Mont. – Five years after a cow dubbed the "Unsinkable Molly B" leapt a slaughterhouse gate and swam across the Missouri River in an escape that drew international attention, the heifer has again eluded fate, surviving the collapse of the animal sanctuary where she was meant to retire.

Molly B was among an estimated 1,200 animals removed from the Montana Large Animal Sanctuary and Rescue in recent weeks as part of a massive effort to bail out its overwhelmed owners.

Animal welfare groups said they were forced to euthanize dozens of starving and ill cattle, horses and llamas found on the 400-acre sanctuary in rural Sanders County.

The bovine celebrity herself - an overweight black Angus breed said to be sore in the hoof but otherwise relatively healthy - was removed to a nearby ranch and is headed this week to a smaller farm sanctuary.

"Molly B made it OK. She's a tough old broad," said Jerry Finch with Habitat for Horses of Hitchcock, Texas, who participated in the rescue effort. "She had bad feet, but she was not anywhere near as bad as some of the others."

Molly B's relocation to a 20-acre ranchette known as the New Dawn MT Sanctuary has proven an adventure in its own right. Local media stories had trumpeted her arrival at the Stevensville facility last week, including photos said to be of Molly B and new friend "Misty."

Yet when New Dawn owner Susan Eakins watched one of the reports on the nightly news, video of the cow climbing a hill revealed the sanctuary had gotten the wrong animal - a male steer named "Big Mike." A mix-up left Molly B behind on another ranch.

Her home since 2006, near the small town of Hot Springs, in recent years had grown into a sort of Noah's Ark-gone-wild - more than 600 llamas; at least 100 horses, donkeys and cattle; and a motley assortment of bison, camels, exotic rodents and other furry and feathered beasts.

Many of the animals were breeding. Rescuers said that allowed the sanctuary population to multiply unchecked, setting the stage for conditions to deteriorate rapidly after one of the facility's two full-time employees fell ill last year. As the situation worsened, word circulated among animal rescue groups across the country.

Patty Finch with the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries said by the time she called the Montana facility in late November to offer help, many of its animals were sick, dying or struggling to survive in increasingly cramped quarters.

"Molly is a good representative of what a betrayal it was to each of these animals. The sanctuary should be a line in the sand that means never again should you suffer," said Patty Finch, who said she has no relation to Jerry Finch.

Molly B's second retirement will start another chapter in an unlikely story that began January 2006, when a yet-to-be-named 1,200 pound heifer skipped her date with doom by leaping a 5-foot-5-inch fence at Mickey's Packing Plant in Great Falls.

The cow raced through town with police and animal control on her heels, reportedly running into a conflict with a German Shepherd, dodging an SUV and negotiating through a rail yard. She swam across the Missouri River and later took three tranquilizer darts before eventually getting corralled.

Mickey's Packing Plant employees christened the spirited cow Molly B and voted 10-1 to spare her from slaughter.

A less formal vote on Molly B's fate came out in her favor this weekend. New Dawn owner Eakins said after a heart-to-heart with her husband over whether they could afford to take another cow into their 50-animal operation, the couple decided to make it work. "We made a commitment to her," Eakins said.

___

Online:

New Dawn MT Sanctuary:The Ballad of Molly B:

USA TODAY BEST-SELLERS

Key: F-Fiction; NF-Nonfiction; H-Hardcover; P-Paperback; E-Ebook

1. "Tick Tock" by James Patterson, Michael Ledwidge (Little, Brown) (F-H)

2. "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larsson (Vintage) (F-P)

3. "The Girl Who Played With Fire" by Stieg Larsson (Vintage) (F-P)

4. "Marrying Daisy Bellamy" by Susan Wiggs (MIRA) (F-P)

5. "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand (Random House) (NF-H)

6. "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" by Stieg Larsson (Knopf) (F-H)

7. "Wild Man Creek" by Robyn Carr (MIRA) (F-P)

8. "The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommom Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman" by Timothy Ferriss (Crown Archetype) (NF-H)

9. "Water for Elephants: A Novel" by Sara Gruen (Algonquin) (F-E)

10. "Awakened" by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast (St. Martin's Griffin) (F-H)

11. "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic Press) (F-P)

12. "Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back" by Todd Burpo, Sonja Burpo, Colton Burpo and Lynn Vincent (Thomas Nelson) (NF-P)

13. "Here to Stay" by Catherine Anderson (Signet) (F-P)

14. "The Confession" by John Grisham (Doubleday) (F-H)

15. "Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic Press) (F-H)

16. "Mockingjay" by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic Press) (F-H)

17. "Cutting for Stone" by Abraham Verghese (Knopf) (F-E)

18. "Shadowfever" by Karen Marie Moning (Delacorte Press) (F-H)

19. "Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 5: The Last Olympian (Disney-Hyperion) (F-P)

20. "Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth" by Jeff Kinney (Amulet Books) (F-H)

21. "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" by Amy Chua (Penguin Press) (NF-H)

22. "Strategic Moves" by Stuart Woods (Putnam Adult) (F-H)

23. "Sexy Forever: How to Fight Fat after Forty" by Suzanne Somers and Michael Galitzer (Crown Archetype) (F-H)

24. "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett (Putnam Adult) (F-H)

25. "When Beauty Tamed the Beast" by Eloisa James (Avon) (F-P)

26. "The Inner Circle" by Brad Meltzer (Grand Central Publishing) (F-H)

27. "Winter Garden" by Kristin Hannah (St. Martin's Griffin) (F-P)

28. "Decision Points" by George W. Bush (Crown) (F-H)

29. "What the Night Knows: A Novel" by Dean Koontz (Bantam) (F-H)

30. "Swimsuit" by James Patterson, Maxine Paetro (Grand Central Publishing) (F-P)

31. "Live to Tell: A Detective D.D. Warren Novel" by Lisa Gardner (Bantam) (F-P)

32. "The Next Decade" by George Friedman (Doubleday) (NF-H)

33. "Archangel's Consort" by Nalini Singh (Berkley) (F-P)

34. "How to Woo a Reluctant Lady" by Sabrina Jeffries (Pocket Star) (F-P)

35. "The Countess" by Lynsay Sands (Avon) (F-P)

36. "Deliver Us from Evil" by David Baldacci (Grand Central Publishing) (F-P)

37. "Room: A Novel" by Emma Donoghue (Little, Brown) (F-E)

38. "The Investment Answer" by Daniel C. Goldie and Gordon S. Murray (Business Plus) (NF-H)

39. "The Hidden Reality" by Brian Greene (Knopf) (NF-H)

40. "Dead or Alive" by Tom Clancy and Grant Blackwood (Putnam Adult) (F-H)

41. "Sizzle" by Julie Garwood (Ballantine) (F-P)

42. "The Lost Hero" by Rick Riordan (Disney-Hyperion) (F-H)

43. "Little Bee: A Novel" by Chris Cleave (Simon & Schuster) (F-P)

44. "Cross Fire" by James Patterson (Little, Brown) (F-H)

45. "True Grit" by Charles Portis (Overlook Press) (F-P)

46. "The Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown (Anchor) (F-P)

47. "Broken" by Karin Slaughter (Dell) (F-P)

48. "I Am Number Four" by Pittacus Lore (HarperCollins) (F-E)

49. "The MacGregors: Alan - Grant" by Nora Roberts (Silhouette) (F-P)

50. "House Rules" by Jodi Picoult (Washington Square Press) (F-P)

Reporting stores include: Amazon.com, B. Dalton Bookseller, Barnes & Noble.com, Barnes & Noble Inc., Books-A-Million and Bookland, Booksamillion.com, Borders Books & Music, Bookstar, Bookstop, Brentano's, Davis Kidd Booksellers in Nashville, Jackson, Memphis, Tenn., Doubleday Book Shops, Hudson Booksellers, Joseph-Beth Booksellers (Lexington, Ky.; Cincinnati, Cleveland), Powell's Books (Portland, Ore.), Powells.com, R.J. Julia Booksellers (Madison, Conn.), Schuler.