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RBI cuts interest rates by 50 basis points, surprises markets!

Arun Prabhudesai — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 06:52:24 +0000

Finally after 2 years of continuous upward revisions RBI, in its annual monetary policy for 2012-13, slashed the policy interest rates by 50 basis points surprising analysts and markets. They were expecting a rate cut of 25 bps, but RBI surprised them all by being aggressive.

The repo rates at which Indian banks borrow money from Reserve Bank of India now stands at 8% as compared to 8.5% earlier. Similarly, the reverse repo rate at which RBI borrows money from Indian banks has come down from 7.5% to 7%. The CRR (Cash Reserve Ratio) has been left untouched.

Interest Rate Change over past 3 years

Date	Reverse Repo	Repo
17-Apr-12	7.00	8
25-Jan-11	7.50	8.50
16-Sep-11	7.25	8.25
26-Jul-11	7.00	8.00
16-Jun-11	6.50	7.50
3-May-11	6.25	7.25
17-Mar-11	5.75	6.75
25-Jan-11	5.5	6.5
2-Nov-10	5.25	6.25
2-Sep-10	4.75	6.00
27-Aug-10	4.25	5.75
2-Aug-10	4.	5.5
20-Apr-10	3.75	5.25
19-Mar-10	3.5	5.00
21-Apr-09	3.25	4.75

One of the main reasons that RBI decided to cut the interest rate is because the inflation has more or less come under check. Double digit Inflation was prevalent for about 2 years and RBI did not have an option but to keep the interest rates higher. The rate of inflation has eased to 6.9% in March of this year, which has been over 10% for most part of last year. The average Indian Inflation rate has been 7.99% in last 40 years.

Higher interest rate have slowed down economic as well as corporate growth in India. Couple of months back India’s GDP growth projection was revised downward from 7.60% to 7% for Financial year 2012-13. However, with RBI has cutting the policy rates, it is expected that India’s GDP will register higher than projected 7% growth.

It’s time to rejoice, as Banks may soon announce slashing of interest rates on home & car loans!

Do you think we will see more rate cuts in coming months?

Infosys bleeding: Low Q4 profits, competition with Cognizant, share price fall & now freezing salary increments!

Kaushambi — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:40:14 +0000

What happens when the stock price of the country’s largest IT giant tanks 13% in a single session?

The markets go into a frenzy, analysts go into an overdrive and investors fret. That’s exactly what happened when Infosys posted disappointing Q4 results on 13 April combined with the double whammy of a lower guidance for 2012-13. Here is a wrap up of the blood bath and the cruel week that followed.

Disappointing Q4 results for Infosys

Infosys shares witnessed a drop of around Rs. 350 on 13 April 2012 post results for Q4. This is the biggest drop in the share price of the IT giant in the last 3 years and wiped off Rs. 20,000 crore in market value. The shares tanked around 13% and the disappointing results also triggered drops in share prices for IT majors like TCS, Wipro and HCL. All the heavyweights tanked substantial losses.

On the same day Business Standard reported that Infosys lost its coveted ‘Most Influential Stock’ status not only to Ambani led RIL, but also fell behind ITC. In the trading sessions that followed, Infosys continued the losing streak and losses widened. At end of day on 16 April, the stock which was hovering around the Rs. 2,800+ mark closed at Rs. 2,360. The stock lost in excess of 15-16% since the blood bath began on the 13^th. Analysts and market gurus are pegging a subdued forecast for Infosys and not surprisingly so.

Reports of losing 2^nd place to Cognizant

If the blow from disappointing results was not enough, the lowered guidance for growth in FY13 puts Infosys trailing behind the industry growth estimates by Nasscom. The US economy is not in its best of shapes and if Infosys continues to chase the notion of ‘low volume, high margin’, it could very well lose its 2^nd spot to rival Cognizant.

Reduced hiring activity at Infosys for 2012-13

Late last week, Infosys announced that it would be making 35,000 gross additions to its workforce in 2012-13. While that is a staggering number by itself, it is more than a 22% drop from its hiring levels in 2011-12 when it hired in excess of 45,000 personnel.

Infosys freezing salary increments

"Today morning after our management council meet we announced that there will be no hikes, of course, employees will understand" said Nandita Gurjar, HR Head, Infosys.

This bone chilling announcement by the IT exporter came as it continues its battle with a weaker global economy and a lower growth guidance for 2012-13. Has this ever happened before? Yes. Infosys delivered a similar announcement back in 2008 but later brought back the smiles on the faces of its employees as it gave a near 10% raise in pay. While promotions don’t stop, increments do.

Whether this results is higher than average attrition or not, only time will tell.

Infosys going through tough times, accepts CFO V Balakrishnan

CFO and Member of Board V Balakrishnan spoke to ET Now today and accepted that the company is going through tough times. He voiced concerns for growth and volatility in the business environment which leads to degeneration in the company’s ability to predict and forecast. When quizzed about the weakened and lower guidance the CFO said "Finally we delivered 15.8%. So you are living in a very volatile world. Our guidance is a statement of fact. It can be positive and negative depending on how the world environment is going to move. We have given a guidance based on what we know at this point of time."

A weak US economy and fragile European counterparts are adding to the company’s woes as most of Infosys’ revenues from these two regions. Less hiring activity combined with the news of a freeze in increments, all seems to be going against the tide for the IT giant.

However it should be noted that there is really nothing wrong with the core fundamentals of the company. Infosys reported that it had 3 deals worth more than $100 million and a total of 5 large deals in 2011-12. Yes, the agencies have downgraded the stock and investors are giving it a massive thumbs down. But like Balakrishnan puts it "Companies can’t be run based on market reactions. You have to take decisions in the interest of the company’s long-term goals."

How are Indian companies making their annual reports innovative?

Kaushambi — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 10:00:02 +0000

As a shareholder how many times have you actually bothered to sift through companies’ annual reports packed with data, numbers, facts, information? Unless you are a Chartered Accountant, a Finance professional or someone who holds deep interest in business, it’s unlikely that you will take time out to go through a large annual report PDF or a printed brochure. In fact, HT recently reported that the annual reports of most shareholders go straight into the dustbin and soft copies of annual reports have still not caught the fancy of investors. As businesses constantly attempt to change with the constantly evolving economic scenario, annual reports too haven’t been lagging behind.

Many companies are now beginning to rethink the purpose of an annual report. In addition to its core function of giving a financial overview of the company, annuals reports are also assuming the function of being marketing tools that companies can use to re-enforce their brand image. A handful of companies are now adding innovative elements to their annual reports and sprucing them up so that they can directly connect with the younger shareholders and investors of their company.

Which companies are making the changes and why?

Imagine opening the first page of the annual report of a company like Emami and finding ‘Main Zandu Balm hui, darling tere liye’ written in bright and bold fonts. Zandu Balm is one of Emami’s many brands and this was a real phrase in the famous item number from the movie Dabangg. Well, that’s Emami’s youth connect for you. Flip through the pages further and you will find other hit Bollywood numbers like ‘Baar baar dekho…haazar baar dekho or Sar jo tera chakraaye" embedded with the company’s facts and figures to bring back a young fresh vibe. In addition to this wackiness, bright and young colors, lots of interactive info graphics and information snippets won’t fail to catch your eye. The aim here apparently is to use the annual report to treat the investor / shareholder like a customer, to retain their interest in the company and to maintain an emotional relationship with them.

Kotak Mahindra’s annual report won the Gold Award for being the most creative report in Asia Pacific and the Platinum Award for the best report in the Banking category at the League of American Communications Professionals Vision Awards in 2010. Knowing this you’d probably expect the report to be well illustrated, error-free, drenched in analyses, forecasts, estimates and some sales copy. But lo and behold, Kotak Mahindra’s award winning annual report sports the theme of SMS language to celebrate their 25^th anniversary – "Its grt 2b 25, V r 25 too". They also used pictures of their board members when they were 25 years old to add some chutzpah. The management wanted to communicate a clear message with this theme – although we’ve been around since a long time, out blood is still young and we’re ready to adapt.

While a handful companies have begun to attempt such innovations in their vital documents, Infosys has been the forerunner. They used images of Madhuri Dixit, C.K. Prahalad, Anil Kumble and Shivram Karanth amongst many other celebrities in one of their annual reports all the way back in the nineties, reported ET. Maybe, they envisaged the annual report as a marketing tool a little too soon.

Is the innovation worth it?

All the wackiness aside, brand experts do acknowledge that the urgent need of companies to communicate with the youth should not result in flippancy. This may end up having a reverse effect by tarnishing the company’s well built image.

The second flipside is that the youth actually wants to be treated as adults who can read serious texts of traditional financial documents. In such a scenario, companies need to think about who they are attempting to win over.

And lastly, innovative elements in annual reports need to be universal. At the end of the day, they are important legal documents. Using SMS lingo may be well taken in India but how is it going to speak to a person in American reading the annual report? They don’t text as much as Indians do and they may or may not be well versed with lyrics of Bollywood numbers floating around important company facts and figure. To re-iterate the popular management funda – innovating is good, but innovating for the sake of innovating is not!

With a balanced amount of innovation in the style and format of annual reports, companies should focus more on including CSR Indices, Carbon Footprint Indices and Sustainability forecasts in their annual reports. ET recently reported that compliance and recognition of Human Rights violations too may form an important part of a company’s annual reports, as soon as the Ministry of Corporate Affairs introduces the changes and guidelines formally.

Will MCX IPO revive the Primary market in India?

Viral Dholakia — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:06:40 +0000

Initial Public Offering (IPO) has lost its sheen on the Dalal Street since a long time now. Invariably, the sentiment in the IPO market is directly proportional to the optimism-count in the secondary market.

Now that the market sentiment has improved since more than a month, led by brightening macroeconomic fundamentals of the economy; it’s high time that the primary market lights up its courtyard with a bandwagon of high-profile fund raising sprees.

On this note, what better than the MCX IPO, India’s largest commodity exchange by turnover, to mark the turn of events in the ailing primary market – it can easily be termed as mother of all the IPOs in the recent times.

The multi-commodity bourse MCX, which is also the 5^th largest exchange in the world, is all set to hit the capital markets to raise up to Rs.663 crore. Investors can subscribe to the MCX IPO at a price band of Rs.860 to Rs.1032 per share starting from 22^nd Feb to 24^th Feb, 2012.

The Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) allows trading in over 40 commodities across sectors and accounts for almost 87% of the market share of the Indian commodity futures exchange industry. Interestingly, MCX is also the largest silver exchange in the world and 2^nd largest gold, copper and natural gas exchange globally.

[MCX DRHP]

The listing will take MCX on par with other global exchanges such as NASDAQ, NYSE Euronext, CME Group and SGX. Moreover, the credit rating agency CRISIL has assigned the top-most rating of 5/5 for the MCX IPO indicating ‘strong fundamentals’ of this Indian exchange.

In its grading rationale, CRISIL has reaffirmed MCX’s leadership position in the Indian commodity futures market over the last four years, with a share of over 82% of the overall traded turnover in FY11, led by volumes in bullion, crude oil, copper and natural gas. ‘

The rating agency has also credited the company with a strong technology-backed trading platform, and infrastructure supported by its promoter Financial Technologies, apart from the exchange’s ability to provide high liquidity and low impact cost of transactions.

MCX IPO Details

Issue Period: Feb 22 to Feb 24
Issue Size: Public offer of 6,427,378 equity shares of Rs.10 each
Issue Type: 100% Book building
Price Range: Rs.860 to Rs.1032/-
Face Value: Rs.10/-
Market Lot: 6 equity shares
IPO Grading: 5/5 (CRISIL)

Over the last 3 years, MCX has benefited from volume explosion in bullion trades, especially, gold and silver. While gold volumes have remained constant over the last year, the silver volumes have been the top driver in commodity-wise contribution based on traded value for MCX since FY11. In order to further spur its volumes from bullion trades, recently, MCX has introduced Gold Mini and Silver Micro contracts, which are aimed at local and retail investors.

VALUATIONS: At the upper price band of Rs.1032, the issue is reasonably priced at 18 times, based on annualized FY12 earnings – which are lower in terms of valuations as compared to other exchanges and relatively slower growth rates. Investors can subscribe the IPO from both listing gains and long-term investment perspective.

Grey Market Premium for MCX IPO: Rs.300-350 per share

BSE Sensex crosses 18000 on declining Inflation & Rate cut prospects !

Viral Dholakia — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 09:08:55 +0000

BSE Sensex is back to its winning habit – the Indian benchmark index has crossed a key psychological resistance of 18000 to be comfortably perched at the highest level since August 2011, backed by emergence of favorable macroeconomic scenario over the last one month.

Not surprisingly, leading the race among the key index (S&P CNX Nifty) constituents, over the last one month, are rate sensitive stocks such as Reliance Infrastructure (54% gains), JP Associates (40%), Tata Motors (35% gains), Maruti (30%), Axis Bank (28%), IDFC (28%) and DLF (27%).

After a spate of negative news on global crisis and deteriorating fiscal environment back home, finally there is a ray of hope at the other side of the tunnel with headline inflation turning down its head and key interest rates on the brink of downward journey.

[Image Source]

On the global front, the Asian markets remained firm on Japan’s central bank expanding its asset buying program by pumping incremental $130 billion into its ailing economy amid global uncertainties. On the other hand, tremors from the Greek sovereign crisis have also subsided for the time being as the country is all set to buy time with a second bailout and avoid default.

Back home, India’s wholesale-price index slumped to over two-year low of 6.55% in January on declining food prices; further sparking hopes to the RBI’s case of lowering interest rates as economic growth weakens and inflationary pressures remains curbed.

Last month, India’s central bank signaled readiness to soften its harsh monetary tightening spree by cutting the CRR by 0.5% to mark a shift in its policy from fighting inflation to reviving growth. This measure is expected to ease structural pressures on liquidity in the system. However, the RBI had retained the policy repo and reverse repo rate at 8.5% and 7.5% respectively.

[Image Source]

Thus, with the reversal in macro environmental factors, stocks from the rate sensitive sectors such as banking, real estate and automobiles are the ones to have joined the party with extra vigor to prop-up the benchmark indices to over October-end highs.

However, not all the optimism is based on improved macro fundamentals, as a part of it can also be attributed to the pre-Budget rally. In fact, every thing is not as hunky-dory on the economic front as is portrayed – for instance, India’s fiscal deficit during April to December 2011 had reached a peak of Rs.3.81 lakh crore, almost hitting the full-year budget estimate of Rs.4.12 lakh crore.

How long do you feel this stock market rally can sustain further?

Reliance Earnings & Share Buyback Plan – Falls Short of Investor Expectations !

Viral Dholakia — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:55:59 +0000

What an oxymoron! Reliance Industries (RIL), the largest Indian conglomerate, is going through a stagnation phase in terms of its earnings performance, yet being the country’s most valued firm.

For almost a year now, RIL has been a dragger on the benchmark indices – with its share price dipping by almost 35% in 2011; adversely hit by depressing refining margins, fall in KG basin gas production, lack of new project pipeline and lower income from overseas investments in unconventional sources of energy.

In addition, the petrochemical and refining major reported a sharp drop in net profit by 13.5% to Rs.4440 crore for the quarter ended December 2011. This beaten down earnings has come on the back of 40% improvement in turnover at Rs.87840 crore, which indicates benign growth in demand for the company’s products, whilst contracting refining margins.

RIL’s gross refining margins have dipped even below the Singapore benchmark of about $8/bbl, at $6.80 per barrel, dismally down from $9/bbl during a year-ago period. The group honcho has blamed the global nature of its business and weakness in economic conditions for reduced earnings in the quarter.

In order to overcome the clouds of pessimism from weak results and beaten down stock price, RIL’s management has announced a buyback program of an aggregate amount which shall not exceed Rs.10440 crore. Here’s more clarity on the buyback plan:

Maximum Buyback spending: Rs.10440 crore
Maximum number of shares planned to be bought: 12 crore
Maximum Shares of Free float to be bought: 6.7%
Maximum Shares of Total equity capital to be bought: 3.7%
Maximum Price per share: Rs.870/-

This means that the management will be happy to buyback shares of the company at a price NOT exceeding Rs.870/- per share, which is determined as a fair value price point to deploy company’s cash reserves to reduce free float from the open market. Indirectly, it also means that the share price will find it difficult to rise beyond Rs.870/- in the near future, as a discovered value zone.

However, the company is not obliged to buyback all the 12 crore shares at a stretch, even if the stock continues to linger below the threshold price for long. The guideline is to put in place the upside limitations in terms of price and quantum of shares planned to be bought back.

Reality Check on Your Investments in RIL [1 Year Performance]

[Image Source]

For long, there exists a great disparity in the corporate world to announce lucrative buyback plans to enthuse investors and the real intention to execute the same. Is SEBI hearing it?

It must be pointed out that RIL had cash reserves of Rs.74539 crore at the end of the December quarter – including funds shored-up from the country’s biggest energy deal for sale of 30% stake in its 23 blocks to BP for $7.2 billion. In fact, RIL’s surplus cash reserves is likely to hit $25 billion by March 2012, if reports are to be believed.

Not surprisingly, Reliance’s ‘other income’ has surged to a high of Rs.1717 crore in its Q3-FY12 performance. Almost a third of the company’s profit before tax is constituted of non-core income rather than being topped up by the operating income.

In the near term, the share buyback will prove to be EPS accretive as the company mops-up its free float from the open market, thus improving the earnings per share for the existing shareholders. Moreover, a chunk of its non-core assets are also taken care of, while company betting its cash reserves on its own growth plans.

However, disappointing Q3 results meant that markets expected a mega-buyback plans to keep them contended – say to the tune of Rs.15-20 thousand crores. But, the markets didn’t get it. The Resultant: RIL stock dipped by 3% on the bourses today.

2012 Resolutions for Stock Market Investors !

Viral Dholakia — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 12:25:06 +0000

Year 2011 is history now – I do not wish to start this post with its reference, but the year gone by was fraught with so much of pain and uncertainty, that it has become imperative for me to formulate an essay on top 2012 resolutions for the bruised investors so as to not burn their hands in the New Year or repeat their past mistakes.

In fact, this post is for me as much as it is for readers, because this post will serve as a ready reckoner when we venture into investing in 2012.

To start with, let me share a small lesson from my experience in investing in Indian markets. Just as they say, every bull market has a new hero to ride upon; no bear market scenario is ever similar in nature to its past phase. Every new recession is plagued with a new set of reasoning and ailments.

For instance, the 1997 Asia financial crisis started with collapse of Thai baht and deepened further to spread across Asia, whereas the 2008-recession was largely on account of liquidity crunch worldwide triggered by the US recession. And, now, we’re grinding through the Euro zone sovereign debt crisis.

Hence, it is not necessary that the symptoms and ailments of any two equity bear market scenarios will resemble each other. Yet, we can always take lessons from the same, as they come with a message that will serve some or the other good cause during the times of crisis.

Five 2012 Resolutions for Investors:

Repent by investing in leveraged business

Before 2008-recession, the stock prices of corporate firms were screened based on their future business prospects and order book size. However, after witnessing the liquidity crunch, market participants felt the need to evaluate stock prices based on additional parameters such as debt equity ratio and operating cash flows amongst others.

High debt levels means that a company has been aggressive in financing its growth, which could add volatility and additional interest costs on its heads. The bet over here is that the firm expects the returns from its businesses to be superior to overall expenses. But, if this equation gets screwed up, the company gets into trouble.

Lesson: Stretch your legs according to the length of the coverlet.

Markets are never too cheap

Yes, it sounds a bit upside down, as investors usually tend to value firms based on several fundamental valuation metrics. Though, this is not to betray those genuine valuation parameters. But, how often have you bought a stock thinking that the valuation is cheap; and it took further hair-cut of another 50% from those lucrative levels?

Frankly, this had happened to me few months back. I had bought shares of few mid-cap real estate firms, such as HDIL and Indiabulls Real Estate, thinking that their valuations have stooped to rock bottom levels, after witnessing a melt-down to a tenth of their previous bull market peaks.

But, now I realize that two best stocks to buy from the real estate sector are Godrej Properties and Oberoi Realty – both of which boast of very low or negligible debt on their books.

Lesson: Never rely on valuations alone, evaluate other parameters as well.

Trust on the Management quality

It might sound a bit theoretic to say that one ought to place trust on the management quality of a firm, but the fact remains that such companies get re-rated on the bourses sooner than others, if the administration enjoys higher trust seal amongst investors and other stakeholders.

Of course, management quality alone can not work wonders; it needs to be backed with sound business prospects and optimal debt size limit as well. But, you can rest assured that once the recession is over and the market is in the recovery mode, you will regain your lost investment value in the stock price of firm with good pedigree management.

Lesson: A tree grows with firm foundation and roots.

Hear others opinions, but keep your Mind Open

Stock market is a subjective game where different analysts ought to hold divergent views. Analysts are here to predict and guide us to the way forward, but no one is certain about the future. There is no harm in hearing patiently to every other analyst on the street, but keep your mind open to various possibilities of market movement rather than relying on any particular strong opinion.

Remember, in equity markets, there is a buyer for every seller out there (of course, until there is a downside circuit) in the middle. It means that every sale trade from a pessimistic seller is seen as an opportunity by an optimistic buyer at the other end.

Lesson: Take inputs from others, but calculate your own risks!

Don’t invest for Pleasure

Lastly, don’t invest in equity markets for the sake of pleasure, or just because markets have corrected steeply. First, evaluate your needs for investing, support your investments according to your risk profile and invest with a clear plan and time horizon to see your hard earned money work for you. For instance, a person of 75 year age should not invest in stock markets even if Sensex plunges to 8000-points, based on his risk profile and future needs.

Furthermore, if you are not an informed investor, better stay away from the vagaries of investing directly into markets. There are mutual funds with various themes which operate with the mandate to provide expertise at very reasonable costs for your hard earned money.

Lesson: Do not gamble with your hard earned money.

So, do you confide to adhere to any of the above 2012 resolutions? Let me know…

Foreign Investors allowed to directly invest in Indian Equity Markets!

Arun Prabhudesai — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 09:11:29 +0000

2011 was not a very Happy year for investors in Indian Stock Markets – Indian as well as international investors lost money to the tune of lakh’s of crore rupees. Benchmark Index lost over 20% from the start of the year.

This year though, Government is taking steps to turn around – The new year has started on a happy note for Indian Stock Markets with Central Government allowing Qualified Foreign Investors (QFIs) to directly invest in Indian equity market. This will help Indian stock markets to widen the class of investors, attract more foreign funds, and reduce market volatility.

It is a great sign that Government is bringing in reforms to open up Indian capital markets – Till now, Foreign Institutional Investors (FII’s) were only allowed to invest in mutual funds . Though, this is a significant news, somehow investors don’t seem to have taken it in a very positive way – At the point of writing this, Sensex as well as Nifty are both trading marginally in red.

Here are salient features of the new Scheme:

RBI would grant general permission to Qualified Foreign Investors (QFIs) for investment under Portfolio Investment Scheme (PIS) route similar to FIIs.
The individual investment limit for QFIs shall be 5% and 10% respectively of the paid up capital of Indian company. These limits shall be over and above the FII and NRI investment ceilings prescribed under the PIS route for foreign investment in India.
QFIs will be allowed to invest only through SEBI registered Qualified Depository Participant (DP). A QFI can open only one demat account and a trading account with any of the qualified DP.
DP shall ensure that QFIs meet all KYC (Know your Customer) and other regulatory requirements, as per the relevant regulations issued by SEBI from time to time. QFIs shall remit money through normal banking channel in any permitted currency (freely convertible) directly to the single rupee pool bank account of the DP maintained with a designated AD category – I bank. Upon receipt of instructions from QFI, DP shall carry out the transactions (purchase/sale of equity).
DP shall be responsible for deduction of applicable tax at source out of the redemption proceeds before making redemption payments to QFIs.

With most of the stock Analysts and experts being under-weight on Indian equities currently, we may not see much participation from QFI’s. However, when the tide turns, I am sure this new reform will help bring more money into Indian capital markets.

Would love to hear your views on this.

[Suggested Reading - Dear FM, are reforms only for foreigners or Indians, too? by R. Jagannathan]

Five Important Wall Street Q3 Results [Apple, Goldman, BoA, Citigroup, Yahoo]

Viral Dholakia — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 08:26:45 +0000

Even as India Inc moves forward with its Q2 fiscal earnings, the top Wall Street companies are slowly oozing out with their Q3 results performance amid slowdown and deficit-reeling US economy.

While the global sentiment is mired by the unanimous downgrade of Spain’s creditworthiness by three credit rating agencies – Fitch Ratings, S&P and now even Moody’s; the Wall Street earnings have been no show-stealer amid mixed-bag of results with some banks doing well, while few others including Apple missing earnings forecast.

Let me summarize a few important Wall Street earnings performance over here:

Apple drags on lower iPhone sales

In a rare instance on missing its earnings forecast, Apple Inc reported a net profit of $6.62 billion (up 54% from $4.31 billion last year) on revenues of $28.3 billion, which came in a tad lower than Wall Street expectation of $30 billion, for its fiscal fourth quarter of this year.

At 17.7 million, Apple sold 21% more iPhones than last year during the July to September 2011 quarter, with no new next-generation iPhone and iPad releases. However, the iPhone sales fell short by 19% when compared with its previous quarter figures.

Goldman stutters with underwriting losses

Investment banker Goldman Sachs reported a quarterly loss of $428 million for the three months ended September 2011, run down by slump in its investment portfolio and fall in trading revenues. This was its second-ever quarterly loss in at least a decade, next only to post-Lehman era loss of $1.6 billion in Q4-2008.

Goldman’s net revenues came in at $3.59 billion, down 60% from $8.9 billion a year ago period. The Q3 results include $1.05 billion losses from investment in Industrial and commercial Bank of China. Its investment and lending business lost $2.48 billion during the quarter under review.

Bank of America prospers with one-time gains

Bank of America, the second biggest US bank by assets next only to JP Morgan Chase, posted a net profit of $6.23 billion. Revenues recorded a growth of 6% to $28.7 billion mostly led by one-time accounting gains related to debt valuations.

In the race to claim position of top-most American bank, Bank of America came in second with its $2.22 trillion in assets, behind JP Morgan Chase’s which reported assets of $2.29 trillion in this latest quarter.

Citigroup in the pink of health

Citigroup posted positive Q3 results with net income of $3.77 billion, up 74% from $2.17 billion in the corresponding quarter last year, backed by lower losses from loans and $1.9 billion from credit valuation adjustment gains.

Citigroup, which is fourth largest US bank, posted revenues of $20.8 billion, almost at par with its revenues clocked in the year-ago period. The bank’s losses from bad loans came down by 41% during the July-September quarter to $4.5 billion.

Yahoo beats estimates

Internet portal Yahoo announced its third quarter results with dwindling sales and profitability, led by growing prominence of social media platforms and Google search products. Yahoo Inc posted Q3 profit of $293 million, with search queries showing tepid growth.

Revenues for the third quarter came in at $1.07 billion, down 4.5% from $1.12 billion recorded last year for the September-end quarter. The revenues exclude traffic acquisition costs. The internet giant is aiming for more business partnerships to target growing monetization.