Fourth Quarter | featured news

Fannie Mae earned $17.2 billion last year, the biggest annual profit in the U.S. mortgage giant's history, helped by a record fourth quarter.

Costs related to Staples turnaround plan helped drive down the office supplier's fourth-quarter net income by 72 percent. Its quarterly revenue and financial outlook for the year missed Wall Street's expectations.

The Commerce Department said that output expanded at an annual rate of just 0.1 percent, way below the country’s long-term average but above the original estimate of a contraction.

Almost 2 million American homeowners were freed from negative equity in 2012, and the overall percentage of all homeowners with a mortgage in negative equity fell to 27.5 percent at the end of the fourth quarter, according to Zillow’s fourth quarter Negative Equity Report.

The Washington Post Co. reported a fourth quarter 2012 loss of $45.4 million, or $6.57 a share as it took $113 million of charges for goodwill write downs and restructuring, mostly in its Kaplan education subsidiary. A year earlier the company earned $61.7 million or $8.03 a share

Some of the key takeaways from DirecTV’s Q4 2012 earnings include a focus on improving financials and controlling costs in the U.S., continued aggressive expansion in Latin America and plans to increase investments in upgrading programs.

The U.S. Postal Service lost $1.3 billion in the October to December quarter, an official said on Friday, days after the beleaguered mail agency announced plans to cut back on Saturday delivery to save money.

LinkedIn reported fourth quarter 2012 earnings that beat Street expectations, sending shares soaring in late trading.

Philip Morris International Inc., which markets Marlboro cigarettes outside the U.S., said fourth-quarter profit rose 11%, thanks to higher sales volumes in Asia and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Rising TV subscription fees plumped up profits at Time Warner. The media and entertainment giant said profits in the last three months of 2012 rose 51% from a year ago to $1.2bn (£750m), despite no change in revenues. TV subscription income rose 7%, as cable and satellite operators paid more to carry channels such as CNN and TNT.