“Apple Inc. (AAPL) Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook is feeling the heat.

Eighteen months after taking over from Steve Jobs, Cook is facing rising production costs, competition from Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) and slowing growth in smartphones, threatening profits for the world’s most valuable company.

An earnings report tomorrow may show that fiscal first- quarter net income slipped 2 percent to $12.8 billion, or $13.48 a share, according to analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. In all except one quarter since 2003, profit has jumped more than 10 percent. Analysts project sales will rise 18 percent to $54.8 billion, the slowest growth rate since 2009.

Apple’s shares have dropped almost 30 percent since September, erasing about $190 billion in market value, on concern that demand for iPhones and iPads is ebbing. Cook, 52, overhauled most of the company’s product line ahead of the holiday shopping season, and results for the period will show for the first time whether the effort paid off.

“Sentiment could not be worse,” said Peter Karazeris, an analyst at Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, which owned about 647,000 Apple shares as of September. “It does take something fundamental to turn that, and we’ll see if they can deliver.”

Apple often reports results that surpass even the most optimistic projections, and it’s possible the company will do so again tomorrow. The company has exceeded analysts’ estimates for earnings in all but three quarters since at least 2006, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Parts Purchases…”

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“Shares of Caterpillar, the world’s largest construction equipment manufacturer, are falling in pre-market trading today after the company announced a big writedown on Friday after the closing bell.

The $580 million charge announced by Caterpillar on Friday afternoon relates to an acquisition the company made in China last year. It paid $800 million for the company, Siwei, but the target company’s management team had apparently been fudging the books for quite some time, leading Caterpillar to wildly overpay for the acquisition.

BofA Merrill Lynch analyst Ross Gjilardi has a good summary of the writedown:

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“(Reuters) – U.S. electricity regulators are expected to impose a $1.5 million fine as early as Tuesday on a Deutsche Bank AG subsidiary over alleged power market manipulation, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) earlier proposed that the energy-trading arm of Deutsche pay the fine and disgorgement of $123,198 in alleged ill-gotten profits last year, saying it manipulated California power prices.

Last week, the FERC requested a further extension in the legal deadline until January 22 amid the ongoing talks. (http://link.reuters.com/tej45t)

Deutsche Bank has disputed FERC’s allegation that it manipulated the market by deliberately losing money on physical transactions to profit in derivative markets…”

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” Sony’s U.S. unit is selling its NYC headquarters to a group of investors led by Chetrit Group for $1.1 billion, the cash-strapped companyannounced today. Sony said it will use the proceeds to “undertake a range of initiatives to strengthen its financial foundation and business competitiveness and for future growth….”

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“FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Investors who lost money in a Ponzi scheme run by Helmut Kiener, convicted founder of the K1 hedge fund in Germany, are suing Barclays Plc for selling his products to them, their lawyers said on Friday.

The lawyers said they were seeking a total of around 100 million euros ($133.58 million) in damages and had lodged more than 100 suits against Barclays with regional courts in Frankfurt and Munich over warrants issued by the bank that were linked to Kiener portfolios.

Kiener, dubbed a German “mini Madoff” by the media in reference to the jailed U.S. fraudster, was sentenced in July 2011 to more than 10 years in prison for a scam that prosecutors said cost investors 345 million euros.

The lawyers, who said they represent more than 1,000 claimants, have also moved to bundle the claims into a class action suit.

“We are confident the Frankfurt court will initiate the class-action case within six months,” said Andreas Tilp, one of the lawyers from the ProtectInvest Alliance (PIA), which respresents the plaintiffs.

The Munich and Frankfurt regional courts confirmed that the PIA had filed claims against Barclays in December.

“It was a large number of suits,” a spokesman for the Frankfurt court said. He confirmed the request to start a class-action suit but declined to give further details.

A spokesman for Barclays said the bank would vigorously defend itself in the case.

“Barclays continues to believe the Kiener-related claims are wholly without merit,” he said….”

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“Rio Tinto RIO.AU +2.71% Chief Executive Tom Albanese agreed to step down Thursday, the latest in a string of leaders toppled by shifting fortunes at the world’s biggest mining companies.

The New Jersey native ended his six-year tenure as the company said it would write off roughly $14 billion in the value of various assets—among the largest charges ever in an industry increasingly rocked by runaway costs.

Mr. Albanese, who was behind two large, ill-timed acquisitions at the world’s second-biggest mining company, took responsibility for the hit. “I fully recognize that accountability for all aspects of the business rests with the CEO,” said the 55-year-old engineer.

The bulk of the write-down, between $10 billion and $11 billion, relates to aluminum assets acquired in 2007 that have socked the Anglo-Australian company before. The remaining $3 billion is for Mozambique coal operations acquired only two years ago.

“A write-down of this scale in relation to the relatively recent Mozambique acquisition is unacceptable,” Chairman Jan du Plessis said. “We are also deeply disappointed to have to take a further substantial write-down in our aluminum businesses.” Rio Tinto’s shares fell 1.5% to close at 64.60 Australian dollars (US$68.29) in Sydney….”

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“When a Samsung Electronics Co. executive showed off a new chip at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, he created a flurry of news coverage for a completely different product—the company’s next top-of-the-line smartphone.

For about four months, gadget bloggers along with tech writers at South Korean newspapers have tried to uncover the details of Samsung’s next high-end smartphone, likely to be called Galaxy S IV after consecutively numbered versions over the past three years.

They have suggested it will have a bigger screen, thinner case, come with a pen, have no buttons and, of course, have a faster chip to run it, as well as better battery life. Some reports back in November suggested the new phone would have an unbreakable screen, and others have said it would be waterproof.

Pictures of invitations to a March press event in South Korea have even circulated on some websites….”

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“Sharp Corp has nearly halted production of 9.7-inch screens for Apple Inc’s iPad, two sources said, as demand shifts to its smaller iPad mini.

Sharp’s iPad screen production line at its Kameyama plant in central Japan has fallen to the minimal level to keep the line running this month after a gradual slowdown began at the end of 2012 as Apple manages its inventory, the industry sources with knowledge of Sharp’s production plans told Reuters.

Sharp spokeswoman Miyuki Nakayama said: “We don’t disclose production levels”.

Apple officials, contacted late in the evening after normal business hours in California, did not have an immediate comment.

The sources didn’t say how much of the slowdown was due to seasonal changes in demand or consumers opting for the smaller iPad mini and were unable to characterize Apple’s overall tablet sales.

Macquarie Research has estimated that iPad shipments will tumble nearly 40 percent in the current quarter to about 8 million from about 13 million in the fourth quarter, although Apple’s total tablet shipments will show a much smaller decrease due to strong iPad mini sales….”

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“Deutsche Telekom AG (DTE), Germany’s biggest phone company, is considering a sale this year of its digital classifieds business that may fetch 1.5 billion euros ($2 billion), according to people familiar with the matter.

Deutsche Telekom intends to hire banks as early as this quarter to prepare for a sale or initial public offering of Scout24 Holding GmbH, said two of the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. The business may attract media companies Axel Springer AG (SPR) and Bertelsmann SE as well as buyout firms, they said. Deutsche Telekom may also look for a partner for Scout24, one of the people said….”

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“Facebook announced today at the Open Compute Summit that it is open-sourcing more of its data center designs for storing pictures, high availability and power consumption in data centers.

The news couples with a series of announcements at the event here today:

• Silicon photonics: Intel is contributing designs for its forthcoming silicon photonics technology, enabling 100 Gbps interconnects (enough to last multiple processor generations).
• “Group Hug” board: Facebook is contributing a new common slot architecture specification for motherboards (nicknamed “Group Hug”); this can produce boards that are completely vendor-neutral and can accommodate up to 10 SOCs.
• New SOCS: AMD, Applied Micro, Calxeda and Intel have all announced support for the Group Hug board; Applied Micro has built a mechanical demo of the new design.
• New members: More than a dozen organizations have joined, including storage-oriented companies like EMC, Fusion-io, Hitachi, Applied Micro, ARM and Sandisk.

Facebook  stores 300 million pictures per day. They needed ways to store the pictures but not archive them so people could access them if needed.

Facebook used the OpenCompute “Open Rack” to create a cold storage rack for photos. The specs are now available for anyone to use.

The company is also contributing DragonStone — a design spec for a low-power database server, one CPU board and redundant power, for “cold data” storage. DragonStone has been integrated into Facebook’s data center in Lulea, Sweden, and is seeing 40 percent more efficiency.

Finally, Facebook is contributing Winterfell, a new web server design for fitting more servers on a rack.

Facebook needs the innovation that comes with opening data center designs…”

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“…Obama told lawmakers that he wanted them to swiftly pass a assault-weapon ban and limit magazines to 10 bullets. This would mean reinstating the gun-control law created in 1994 that expired a decade later. Significantly, that will need Congress’ acquiescence, and many conservatives and gun-rights groups like the NRA have vowed to fight any legislation they feel infringes on the Second Amendment.

…a Bushmaster AR-15 manufactured by the Freedom Group, the largest long-gun manufacturer in America. The ban would likely parallel the one signed into law in New York yesterday: there, any rifle with even one militarized feature,  like a pistol grip or a flash suppressor, is now now illegal.

Any sort of ban on modern sporting rifles will greatly affect the closely held Freedom Group and also impact Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger, too. Modern sporting rifles are among the most profitable weapons that gunmakers produced, says Rommel Dionisio, a Wedbush Securities analyst, as well as one of its fastest-growing segments. Freedom Group has said that modern sporting rifles are a useful tool in driving youth interest in firearms….”

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“(Reuters) – Dow Chemical Co is preparing to defend itself at trial against allegations it took part in a conspiracy to fix prices of chemicals used to make a wide range of foam products found in cars, furniture and packaging.

Dow was one of several chemical company defendants named in a class action lawsuit that started nine years ago. But Dow was the only defendant not to settle and is scheduled to go trial on Wednesday in federal court in Kansas City, Kansas.

The stakes are high. The plaintiffs, direct purchasers of the chemical products, estimate damages exceed $1 billion. Under federal antitrust law, damages are trebled so the final judgment against Dow could exceed $3 billion.

The lawsuit alleges that Dow, along with its competitors, began fixing prices for urethane chemicals no later than 1999 when the market was falling and the industry was plagued by excess demand. The conspiracy to keep prices high continued into 2003, according to the plaintiffs.

At trial, the plaintiffs plan to call at least five witnesses who they say will provide direct testimony supporting their case of a price-fixing agreement. Those witnesses include executives of the companies allegedly involved in the conspiracy. The class representatives are Seegott Holdings Inc, Industrial Polymers Inc and Quabaug Corp.

Dow has denied engaging in any price-fixing conspiracy. It has contended that no witness from any of the defendants in the case has testified that they actually entered into an agreement to fix prices….”

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Actually they have already been investing in North America creating over 26k jobs. This additional investment is a 10% bump to what has already been spent.

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“NEW YORK (Reuters) – An escalating series of mishaps on Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner has dealt engineers pushing for a new contract a strong card to play at the negotiating table.

The engineers are considered by aviation experts to be crucial to a safety review of the 787 that the Federal Aviation Administrationlaunched last week after a fire, fuel leaks and other failures sparked widespread fears about the new jet.

The safety concerns threatened to turn into a full-blown crisis for Boeing on Wednesday when Japan’s two leading airlines grounded their 24 Dreamliner passenger jets when one of the aircraft made an emergency landing after instruments indicated a battery error and smoke. [ID:nL1E9CGFCI] The Japanese aircraft account for nearly half the 50 Dreamliners now flying.

On Wednesday, the union made a “best and final” offer to Boeing, proposing to incorporate areas where the two sides had already agreed into the expired contract and extend it for four more years.

This would end “protracted and increasingly contentious negotiations that appear headed for a strike,” the union said and allow Boeing and its workers “to focus on reaffirming confidence and proving the 787 is the reliable and safe product employees know it to be.”

Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the offer.

Experts said a walkout by engineers would impede both the safety review and Boeing’s ambitious effort to double production of the 787 this year because key people with knowledge of the aircraft and the clearance to certify that production lines are meeting FAA requirements would be taken away….”

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“Great, Facebook launched something called Graph Search. But how does it actually help you? From content discovery to finding a restaurant, from recruiting to dating to a trip down memory lane, here’s what you can do with Graph Search. First, check out this quick hands-on video intro above. Then let’s look at some questions Google, Yelp, and LinkedIn couldn’t answer but Graph Search can.

First things first, go to facebook.com/graphsearch and click the button at the bottom to sign up for beta (or begin using it if you already have access). Starting today, Facebook is rolling Graph Search out slowly, but more people should get it in the coming weeks and months. Signing up means you’ll get it sooner.

When you do gain access, you’ll see a notice at the top of your Facebook homepage to activate Graph Search and take a quick tour. Then you’re free to start searching for things like:

DATING…”

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