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Glaxo Plans $2.36 Billion Charge for Legal Issues
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GlaxoSmithKline, the British pharmaceutical company, said Thursday that it would take a second-quarter charge of $2.36 billion related to legal cases involving its drugs Avandia and Paxil.
The company, based in Brentford, England, made the announcement a day after an American medical advisory panel recommended that Avandia, a controversial diabetes drug, should either be withdrawn from the market or have sales severely restricted because it increases the risks of heart attacks.
The company said that the charge announced Thursday, which will amount to about $2.1 billion after taxes, “includes provisioning for settled cases and an estimate for those cases which we have received and are still outstanding.” -
Daly Turns Heads as Open Begins
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The names at and near the top of the leaderboard at the British Open Thursday morning were enough to cause a case of whiplash. While the presence of Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland fell into the “nice surprise” category because of his age (21), his score (63) and the immense pressure on a phenom playing in his own empire, the name John Daly jumped out like a runaway truck.
And Tiger Woods shooting a first-round 67 to sit one shot behind Daly’s 66 caused a few double-takes of its own.
But it was Daly would provided the stunner of the morning. His blast-from-the-past round at Scotland’s iconic St. Andrews course was made more eye-popping by his current role as a walking fashion catastrophe. Daly hit the course looking like a Technicolor experiment gone frightfully bad: lavender paisley pants, a peach shirt, blue sweater, often accessorized by a cigarette hanging from his lips. The getup has been Daly’s thing for the past year or so and he said he built this particular mashup on his “good luck start pants.” -
European Stocks To Start Modestly Lower
European stocks are expected to open modestly lower Thursday, after poor U.S. retail sales data and a cut by the Federal Reserve in its economic growth forecasts outweigh a strong earnings report from the technology company Intel.more
The minutes of the June meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee revealed modest downgrades in the Fed's GDP growth forecasts for 2010 and 2011, and a more sizeable increase in the unemployment rate forecast.
As a result, James Hughes, market analyst at CMC Markets, expects London's FTSE 100 index to start 10 points lower, or down 0.2%, at 5244, Frankfurt's DAC down 13 points, or 0.2%, at 6197, and Paris's CAC-40 down 16 points, or 0.4%, at 3617.
The Fed predicted that GDP would expand by 3.0% to 3.5% this year rather than the 3.2% to 3.7% rate previously projected, while Wednesday's soft U.S. retail sales report further underscored concerns about the U.S. economic recovery.
Julia Coronado, economist at BNP Paribas, said the members stated they would have to consider whether further policy stimulus might become more appropriate if the outlook were to worsen significantly. "The discussion of further stimulus is a significant departure from the prior meetings this year when the focus has been on policies to unwind stimulus... Therefore, we would expect [Federal Reserve] Chairman Bernanke to be more firm in his concern about the outlook at next week's monetary policy report to Congress," she said. -
US HOT STOCKS: Intel, Jackson Hewitt, Gentiva Health, Lexmark
U.S. stocks were mixed Wednesday as the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 3 points to 10365 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 10 points to 2252, but the S&P 500 fell 1 point to 1094. Among the companies whose shares are actively trading are Intel Corp. (INTC), Jackson Hewitt Tax Service Inc. (JTX) and Gentiva Health Services Inc. (GTIV).more
Intel (INTC, $21.94, +$0.93, +4.43%) blew away Wall Street estimates with its second-quarter results, but the chip giant's closely watched gross margins were even more impressive, as the company raised its 2010 outlook to 66% from 64%. Meanwhile, Intel's guidance for third-quarter revenue and gross margin was above consensus. Chief Executive Paul Otellini said this was the best quarter in the company's 42-year history. Intel's strong results boosted stocks across the tech sector. Gainers included PC maker Dell Inc. (DELL, $13.61, +$0.41, +3.11%) and fellow chip makers Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD, $7.60, +$0.08, +1.06%) and Nvidia Corp. (NVDA, $11.00, +$0.08, +0.73%). Hard-drive makers Seagate Technology Inc. (STX, $15.01, +$0.55, +3.80%) and Western Digital Corp. (WDC, $32.72, +$0.68, +2.12%) also gained. -
Iranian Nuke Scientist Is En Route to Iran
Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri, who defected to the US, is now on his way back home to Tehran after a very messy and public re-defection. ABC News obtained exclusive photos of Amiri leaving Washington's Dulles International Airport late Tuesday night on a commercial flight to Doha, Qatar, en route to Iran.more
Amiri was escorted directly to the jetway entrance by a security officer. He was flanked by what appeared to be a U.S. official and a representative from the Pakistani Embassy in Washington._He boarded the Qatar Airways flight ahead of the other passengers, and spoke only to his companions. After more than a year in the US, Amiri claimed he had never really defected. In a series of videos released on the internet, he insisted that he had been kidnapped, drugged and tortured by the CIA. The US flatly denies that it ever held Amiri against his will. -
Twelfth Suspect in Russian Spy-Ring Case Is Deported
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A 12th suspect in the Russian spy-ring case that erupted last month was deported by the U.S. on Tuesday, sent home on a free flight without being charged with a crime.
Alexev Karetnikov, 23 years old, who had lived in the Seattle area, was flown back to Russia from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, according to U.S. officials. His detention was first reported in The Wall Street Journal.
He was transported on Monday to New York for a connecting flight back to Russia after having been taken into custody on June 28 in Seattle, the official said. In the Seattle area, the young Russian had worked as an entry level software tester at Microsoft for less than year, a company spokesman said. -
Militant Attacks Kill 13 in Southern Afghanistan
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Eight U.S soldiers and five civilians have been killed in attacks in southern Afghanistan, including a Taliban assault on a police compound.
Three American soldiers and five Afghan civilians were killed late Tuesday, when militants attacked Afghan police headquarters in the southern city of Kandahar. Officials say a suicide bomber detonated a vehicle full of explosives at the gate, before militants opened fire on the base with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
NATO says its forces and Afghan police successfully repelled the attack and were able to keep the insurgents from entering the compound.
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