Finances

Apple Inc. (AAPL), purveyor of iProducts, reported its quarterly earnings on January 23.

Apple reported net sales of $54.5 billion for the quarter. This represents an increase of 17.7% from the same period last year when the company reported net sales of $46.3 billion.

The company reported quarterly net income of $13.08 billion. This represents an increase of 0.1% from the same period last year when the company reported net income of $13.06 billion.

"We're thrilled with record revenue of over $54 billion and sales of over 75 million iOS devices in a single quarter," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. "We're very confident in our product pipeline as we continue to focus on innovation and making the best products in the world." Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's CFO added, "We're pleased to have generated over $23 billion in cash flow from operations during the quarter. We established new all-time quarterly records for iPhone and iPad sales, significantly broadened our ecosystem and generated Apple's highest quarterly revenue ever."

Apple Inc. has 72,800 full-time employees. The company operates 250 stores in the United States and 140 stores internationally.

Apple Inc. (AAPL) shares ended the week at $439.88.

Google Reports Quarterly Earnings

Google Inc. (GOOG), the well-known technology company, reported its quarterly earnings on January 22.

Google reported quarterly revenue of $12.9 billion. This represents an increase of 22% from the same period last year when the company reported revenue of $10.6 billion.

The company reported net income of $2.9 billion for the quarter. This represents an increase of 6.7% from the same period last year when the company reported net income of $2.7 billion.

"We ended 2012 with a strong quarter," said Larry Page, CEO of Google. "Revenues were up 36% year-on-year, and 8% quarter-on-quarter. And we hit $50 billion in revenues for the first time last year – not a bad achievement in just a decade and a half. In today's multi-screen world we face tremendous opportunities as a technology company focused on user benefit. It's an incredibly exciting time to be at Google."

Google, Inc. was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Mountain View, California.

Google, Inc. (GOOG) shares ended the week at $753.67.

Microsoft Reports Quarterly Earnings

Microsoft (MSFT) reported its quarterly earnings on January 24.

Microsoft reported revenue of $21.46 billion for the quarter. This represents an increase of 2.7% from the same period last year when the company reported revenue of $20.89 billion.

The company reported quarterly net income of $6.38 billion. This represents a decrease of 3.7% from the same period last year when the company reported net income of $6.6 billion.

"Our big, bold ambition to reimagine Windows as well as launch Surface and Windows Phone 8 has sparked growing enthusiasm with our customers and unprecedented opportunity and creativity with our partners and developers," said Steve Ballmer, CEO at Microsoft. "With new Windows devices, including Surface Pro, and the new Office on the horizon, we'll continue to drive excitement for the Windows ecosystem and deliver our software through devices and services people love and businesses need."

Microsoft Corporation has 94,000 full-time employees. The company was founded in 1975 in Redmond, Washington.

Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) shares ended the week at $27.88.

The Dow started the week at 13,650 and closed at 13,894. The S&P 500 started the week at 1,486 and ended at 1,503. The NASDAQ started the week at 3,136 and finished at 3,150.

For the week ending January 19, initial claims for jobless benefits dropped to 330,000 from 335,000 the week prior. This represents the fewest initial claims for jobless benefits since January 2008. This surprised many economists who, according to a survey conducted by Bloomberg, had predicted jobless claims would rise to 355,000 rather than decline.

In addition to jobless claims, home sales also declined 7.3% in December to an annual pace of 369,000. However, this followed a November rate of 398,000 that beat analysts' expectations. "We got a weaker-than-expected home sales report, but we got an upward revision in November – its somewhat neutral as far as our review on housing in the midst of the recovery," said Thomas Simons, a government-debt economist at Jeffries Group Inc. "We think the housing recovery is going to continue. The long end has been selling off."

Further, the European Central Bank said that banks plan to repay $184.4 billion of its three-year loans during the final week of January. "The ECB is taking back some of the extra liquidity it injected into the banking system a year ago," said Christian Schulz, senior economist at Berenberg Bank in London. "Banks can repay weekly now, so it should have a risk-on effect in the near term," said Craig Collins, managing director of rates trading at Bank of Montreal in London. "Treasury rates are going to go higher."

The jobless claims data and the report that banks may repay more of the ECB's three-year loans had the effect of raising 10-year Treasury yields to 1.92% in early trading on Friday, January 25. The 30-year bond yield rose to 3.12%.

The 10-year Treasury note yield finished the week at 1.95% while the 30-year Treasury note yield finished the week at 3.13%.

Freddie Mac released the results of its weekly Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS) on January 24. The results show fixed mortgage rates inching higher this week, but only slightly. The rates still remain near record lows.

The 30-year fixed rate mortgage averaged 3.42% this week. This represents a slight increase from last week when it averaged 3.38%. Last year at this time the 30-year fixed rate mortgage averaged 3.98%.

The 15-year fixed rate mortgage averaged 2.71% this week. This represents an increase from last week when it averaged 2.66%. One year ago, the 15-year fixed rate mortgage averaged 3.24%.

"Fixed mortgage rates were up slightly over the holiday week but remain highly affordable and should continue to aid in the ongoing housing recovery. For instance, existing home sales totaled 4.65 million in 2012, showing a 9.2% increase over 2011 and the strongest pace in five years. In addition, the Federal Housing Finance Agency's purchase-only house price index rose 5.7% over the 12 months ending in November 2012, marking the largest annual increase since June 2006."

The money market fund finished this week at 0.5%. The 1-year CD finished at 0.6%.