Ford Motor reports its worst performance in four years
Dearborn: Ford Motor Co. has reported its worst ever quarterly performance in four years in the quarter ended March 31, 2006. The company said it incurred losses of $1.2 billion in the first quarter of the year. The company's shares fell more than 5 percent in morning trading.

A year earlier the company made a profit of $1.2 billion, or 60 cents per share against a loss of 64 cents per share for the January-March period. Sales fell 9 percent to $41.1 billion from $45.1 billion a year ago.

Ford said its results included a pretax charge of $1.7 billion, or 61 cents per share, for costs associated with its Way Forward restructuring plan, which calls for cutting up to 30,000 jobs and closing 14 facilities by 2012. The charge includes the costs of layoffs and buyouts and pay for hourly workers whose plants have been idled.

Worldwide, Ford's automotive operations lost $2.7 billion before taxes, compared with a profit of $473 million a year ago. That included $2.5 billion in one-time special items such as restructuring charges. Ford sold 1.7 million vehicles worldwide, up 3 percent from a year ago.
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Oil zooms to $75 a barrel
New York: Oil zoomed to $75 a barrel as the U.S.-Iran nuclear stand-off resumed, while base and precious metals prices rebounded from recent lows on better global economic data.

The war of words between Washington and Tehran over Iran's restarted nuclear program renewed fears that supplies could be disrupted from the world's 4th biggest crude exporter.

The United States is accusing Iran of trying to build atomic weapons and is keeping military action as an option if diplomacy fails to stop the Islamic state's nuclear plans. Iran says it is enriching uranium for energy purposes.
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Metals soar
London: Industrial metal copper soared to a new contract high of $3.1450 a lb for May after the International Monetary Fund hiked its 2006 global growth forecast. IMF has put out a growth forecast of 4.9 percent for the world economy, the best since 1976.

Copper, used widely in construction and manufacturing, also hit a new peak in London, with the three-months contract <MCU3> touching $6,785 per tonne.

Zinc touched a record of $3,360 a tonne in London while Nickel another steel input, rose to a new high of $19,400 a tonne. U.S. gold for June ended at $635.50 an ounce, up 2 percent. Spot silver rose to $12.93/13.03 an ounce, from $12.43/12.46 on Thursday, and Friday's earlier two-week low of $11.60. It had soared 50 percent this year, hitting $14.68 on Thursday.
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Google Q1 results beat expectations
San Francisco: Web search company Google Inc reported a 79 per cent jump in revenue beating Wall Street expectations.

Google reported net income of US$592mil, or US$1.95 per diluted share, up 60 per cent from the year-earlier quarter's results of US$372mil, or US$1.29 per share.

Revenue rose to US$2.25bil, above Wall Street forecasts, which ranged from US$2.05bil to US$2.24bil. Revenue included US$723mil in traffic acquisition costs the cut affiliated websites take for running Google advertising on their own sites.

Excluding one-time items, the company reported a profit of US$2.29 a share.
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