Mid-Day Minute - July 30

Stocks rebound
U.S. stocks were up on Wednesday in late morning trading. The Dow rose 1.64 percent to 9,219. The Nasdaq was up 1.47 percent to 1,996.72, while the S&P 500 rose 1.77 percent to 992.39. Read Full Article here.

Exxon's Profit Sinks
Exxon Mobil Corp’s third fiscal quarter profit was $3.95 billion, down 66 percent from 11.68 billion a year ago. It was the oil giant’s lowest quarterly profit since 2003. Revenue was down 46 percent to $74.46 billion. Read Full Article here.

MasterCard beats estimates, shares up
Mastercard’s second quarter profit was $349 million, compared with $747 million a year ago. Excluding litigation costs, profit rose 26 percent, beating the $2.42 per share average estimate of analysts polled by Bloomberg. Shares were up more than 9 percent. Read Full Article here.

Sony, Sharp post losses, Nintendo loses steam
Sony and Sharp's third straight quarters of losses underscore the challenges they face in flat TV market as they struggle to compete with Samsung Electronics and other South Korean rivals benefiting from a weaker won. Read Full Article here.

Microsoft-Yahoo alliance faces many obstacles
The partnership announced on Wednesday seeks to challenge the dominance of Google Inc, but executives at Yahoo and Microsoft acknowledge that building a search powerhouse will be a multi-year effort -- in a business where staying ahead of the competition, not playing catch-up, is critical. Read Full Article here.

Jobless claims rise above forecasts
In the past week the number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless benefits rose to numbers slightly above the expected numbers according to government data on Thursday. Initial claims for state unemployment insurance benefits rose 25,000 to a seasonally adjusted 584,000 in the week ended July 25. Read Full Article here.

AON reports lower 2Q profits, but beat expectations
AON Corp., the largest global insurance broker by market value, reported a second-quarter net income of $149 million, or 52 cents a share, down from $1.1 billion, or $3.71 a share, in the same period last year. Analysts, on average, expected adjusted earnings of 74 cents a share on that basis, according to Reuters Estimates.

Hacking the iPhone as easy as sending an SMS
A Mac security expert has discovered a technique that hackers could use to take control of Apple Inc. computers and iPhone's in order to steal data, disproving the long believed theory that Apple products are more secure than PCs. Read Full Article here.

Motorola posts profit, shares rise
Motorola Inc posted a bigger quarterly profit in the second quarter as it cut costs and shipped more cell phones than expected, sending its shares up 7.6 percent. Read Full Article here.