Company News for March 2, 2010 - Corporate Summary

• Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) raised its dividend 12% to 19 cents and announced plans to buy back $3 billion in shares

• Fresh Del Monte Produce (NYSE:FDP) beat estimates with fourth quarter earnings of 36 cents a share, two cents above projections, on $872.1 million in revenues, which beat expectations of $829.5 million

• Staples's (NASDAQ:SPLS) fourth quarter earnings of 38 cents were in line with analysts' expectations, as were revenues of $6.41 billion. The company provided full-year earnings guidance of $1.23-$1.33

• Tech Data (NASDAQ:TECD) announced fourth quarter earnings of $1.25, well above estimates of $1.01, on revenues of $6.28 billion, which bested estimates of $6.03 billion

• AutoZone (NYSE:AZO) reported fiscal second quarter earnings of $2.46, ahead of $2.34 earnings assumptions on inline revenues of $1.51 billion

• Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) downgraded Kimberly-Clark (NYSE:KMB) from "neutral" to "sell," with a price target lowered to $60 from $63

• UBS (NYSE:UBS) upgraded Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) from "neutral" to "buy"

• General Motors (NYSE:GM) announced it is recalling 1.3 million compact cars sold in North America over the past five years due to problems with the power-steering mechanism. The firm anticipates a cost of only $100 million for the recall

• Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) upgraded Weststar Energy (NYSE:WR) to "outperform" from "market perform," taking the target range $3 higher to $24-$25

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