ATLANTA – Newell Rubbermaid Inc., which makes consumer products ranging from storage containers and strollers to Sharpie pens, said Friday that its second-quarter profit climbed 23 percent. Overall revenue dipped but revenue from its key products edged up. CEO Mark Ketchum said strong consumer demand in Latin America and improvements in distribution helped boost its [...]

NEW YORK – Chevron’s second-quarter earnings tripled on better refining margins and higher prices for oil and natural gas, the company said Friday. The results easily beat most Wall Street expectations. The San Ramon, Calif., company is the latest oil major to report big gains in the second quarter as demand for oil and gasoline [...]

Drugmaker Merck & Co. on Friday reported a 52 percent drop in second-quarter net income, weighed down by big restructuring charges from buying Schering-Plough Corp., generic competition and other factors. Merck, the world’s second-biggest drug company by revenue, beat analysts’ profit expectations by 3 cents a share, but came up short on revenue and slightly [...]

TOKYO – Nissan Motor Co. veered back into the black in its latest quarter as global car sales rebounded while its smaller rival Mitsubishi Motors Corp. narrowed its quarterly loss. Yokohama-based Nissan, maker of the Leaf electric vehicle and the March compact, said Thursday its profit was 106.6 billion yen ($1.2 billion) for the April-June [...]

FRANKFURT (AFP) – Volkswagen posted on Thursday a second quarter net profit of 1.25 billion euros (1.6 billion dollars), well above expectations and more than four times the previous year’s figure. Europe’s biggest automaker had made a profit of 283 million euros in the same period a year earlier, and financial analysts had expected a [...]

TOKYO – Sony bounced back to profit last quarter and raised its full-year earnings forecast, fueled by stronger demand for its PlayStation 3 gaming consoles, personal computers and televisions. The Tokyo-based electronics and entertainment giant said Thursday it booked a net profit of 25.7 billion yen — or $294 million at current exchange rates — [...]

BERLIN – Sales at Volkswagen AG motored ahead in the second quarter, thanks in part to strong demand from China and helping to push earnings sharply higher to euro1.25 billion ($1.6 billion), the company said Thursday. The carmaker, based in Wolfsburg, Germany, had net earnings of euro283 million in last year’s April-June period. Revenue was [...]

NEW YORK (Reuters) – News and data provider Thomson Reuters Corp (TRI.TO) (TRI.N) forecast a return to growth this quarter on stronger sales of financial terminals for traders and the new WestlawNext database for lawyers. The company, which reported lower than-expected quarterly results, is slowly emerging from the shadow of the financial crisis, which triggered [...]

NEW YORK – News and information provider Thomson Reuters Corp. said Thursday its second-quarter net income fell 8 percent on weakness in its legal and markets divisions. The company is still recovering from last year’s economic downturn, which put a crimp in budgets at many of the law firms and financial institutions that it counts [...]

NEW YORK – Motorola Inc. on Thursday reported a sharply higher profit for the second quarter and stabilized its long revenue decline as it strategy of focusing on smart phones like the Droid bore fruit. Co-CEO Greg Brown said he expect the company to post a revenue increase for the third quarter, which would be [...]