Photos And Companies Reporting Earnings Today, Tomorrow -- February 4, 2015

Someone asked me if I had seen any photos like these in the last six years? Nope, sadly I have not. And yes, I miss him. One memory I will never forget is of the soldier in our apartment complex who had bilateral lower extremity prosthetics and was enjoying the apartment complex pool -- that was some years ago when we were living in San Antonio, home of Ft Sam Houston and Brooke Army Medical Center. [Update: just after posting all of that, I went over to the Drudge Report before going to bed; I had not looked at the Drudge Report since earlier this morning. I see the top story is that Brian Williams lied about being on a helicopter that went down due to enemy fire during the 2003 Iraq invasion. He said he was confused; it was another helicopter that went down due to enemy fire; his helicopter came in about an hour later: "I don’t know what screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with another.” Apparently he's been telling the story for quite some time; but it sounds like he "came clean" when US military personnel said it wasn't accurate." And so it goes. He's starting to sound like Lance Armstrong.]

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See disclaimer.

Reporting today:

• General Motors (GM): forecast 83 cents;  GM reports much higher-than-expected fourth-quarter profit; raises dividend; possibly a larger dividend later this year; excluding special items, the largest U.S. automaker earned $1.19 per share, compared with the analysts’ average estimate of 83 cents; net income rose to $1.1 billion, or 66 cents a share, from $900 million, or 57 cents a share, a year earlier. North American profit margins for the full year were 6.5 percent.
• Marathon Petroleum (MPC): forecast $1.38, Marathon Petroleum Corp. (MPC) on Wednesday reported fourth-quarter earnings of $798 million; revenue of $22.34 billion in the period, which also beat Street forecasts. Analysts expected $18.92 billion; for the year, the company reported profit of $2.52 billion, or $8.78 per share. Revenue was reported as $98.1 billion; on a per-share basis, the Findlay, Ohio-based company said it had profit of $2.86; the results beat Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.47 per share.
• Noble Corp (NE): forecast 50 cents; a fourth-quarter loss of $609.6 million, after reporting a profit in the same period a year earlier. On a per-share basis, the London-based company said it had a loss of $2.44. Earnings, adjusted for asset impairment costs and to account for discontinued operations, were 47 cents per share.
• Plains All American Pipeline (PAA): forecast 61 cents; fourth-quarter earnings rose 26% as lower costs offset weaker revenue and the master-limited partnership lowered the midpoint of its 2015 profit outlook. For 2015, Plains All American Pipeline now expects the midpoint of its estimate for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, excluding certain items, will be $2.35 billion, compared with its previous view for just over $2.5 billion. profit of $389 million, or 67 cents a limited partner unit, up from $309 million, or 58 cents a unit, a year earlier. Excluding items, per-unit earnings fell to 60 cents from 76 cents. Revenue fell 11% to $9.46 billion.
• Weatherford (WFT): forecast 32 cents; net income before charges of $252 million ($0.32 diluted earnings per share non-GAAP) on revenues of $3.73 billion for the fourth quarter of 2014.