US stocks drop on earnings, Ukraine tensions

NEW YORK: US stocks Friday slumped after a dim earnings outlook from Amazon sparked a big retreat in tech stocks and as world leaders signaled growing worry over Ukraine.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 140.19 points (0.85 percent) to 16,361.46, while the broad-based S&P 500 lost 15.21 (0.81 percent) at 1,863.40.

The tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index suffered the deepest losses of the three indices, plummeting 72.78 (1.75 percent) to 4,075.56.Amazon sank nearly 10 percent after reporting a skimpy outlook for profit margins and projecting a second-quarter operating loss of $455-$55 million.

"What you see today is a continuation of the trend of the high-growth stocks struggling and Amazon is the poster child for that today," said David Levy, portfolio manager for Kenjol Capital Management.

Other trendy tech names to see big drops included Facebook (-5.2 percent), LinkedIn (-7.8 percent), Priceline (-4.9 percent) and Netflix (-6.4 percent).

Investors are also keeping a close eye on Ukraine as military activity rises and rhetoric becomes more heated. On Friday, Ukraine ratcheted up military operations against pro-Russian rebels in the east.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Russia´s actions suggested it "wants to start a third world war.

"Following a conference call with other leaders, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that European Union ministers would meet soon to agree new sanctions targeting Russia.

Ford Motor reported weaker first-quarter sales in its key North America market amid severe winter weather, notching a 39 percent drop in earnings that missed expectations.

Shares fell 3.3 percent.

Dow member Visa said profits rose 20.5 percent to $1.6 billion. But analysts at Citigroup noted the credit and debit card company lowered the range of its estimate for the upper range on revenue growth to 11 percent from 13 percent. Shares fell 5.0 percent.

Investors pummelled Pandora Media after it reported a loss of $38.7 million and forecast second-quarter revenue below analyst forecasts. "The big worry is that Pandora´s growth is stalling," according to Motley Fool. Shares sank 16.6 percent.

Oil-services company Weatherford International bolted 11.2 percent higher after announcing a series of measures to trim costs. The company plans to cut 6,600 jobs, close 20 underperforming operating locations and divest assets. Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury fell to 2.67 percent from 2.69 percent Thursday, while the 30-year dropped to 3.44 percent from 3.46 percent. Bond prices and yields move inversely. (AFP)

No tensions among institutions, says Rashid

ISLAMABAD: Federal Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid has said that national institutions are standing with those who talk with reason, adding that the prime minister himself visited Geo News anchorperson Hamid Mir in the hospital to enquire about his health.

“We should see with whom the civil society, politicians and the government are standing. They are standing with those who talk with reason and not with those who use arms,” said Rashid while talking to media here Tuesday.

During his talk with the media, the information minister also dispelled the impression of tension between the government and the military.

He said that all state institutions are playing their role under the parameters set by the constitution due to which, he said, no institution opposed any matter on the national agenda in the last five years.

Replying to a question over shifting of Pervez Musharraf to Karachi, Rashid said that grip of law is everywhere in the country.

To another query regarding peace talks, the minister replied that deadlock in talks with the Taliban is part of the negotiation process. Negotiations are moving forward, he added.

No tensions among institutions, says Rashid

ISLAMABAD: Federal Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid has said that national institutions are standing with those who talk with reason, adding that the prime minister himself visited Geo News anchorperson Hamid Mir in the hospital to enquire about his health.

“We should see with whom the civil society, politicians and the government are standing. They are standing with those who talk with reason and not with those who use arms,” said Rashid while talking to media here Tuesday.

During his talk with the media, the information minister also dispelled the impression of tension between the government and the military.

He said that all state institutions are playing their role under the parameters set by the constitution due to which, he said, no institution opposed any matter on the national agenda in the last five years.

Replying to a question over shifting of Pervez Musharraf to Karachi, Rashid said that grip of law is everywhere in the country.

To another query regarding peace talks, the minister replied that deadlock in talks with the Taliban is part of the negotiation process. Negotiations are moving forward, he added.

Ukraine crisis stirs Kerry-Lavrov tensions

WASHINGTON: Russian-US tensions over Ukraine exploded into a public row Monday, as Secretary of State John Kerry refused to attend talks in Moscow after his counterpart snubbed Kiev's interim leaders.
Russia's wily foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, came out swinging first, putting the much-travelled Kerry on the spot by denouncing him for turning down an invitation to meet on Moscow on Monday.
Washington has led global efforts to defuse tensions since Russian troops deployed troops last week in Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula after a months-long tussle over Ukraine's future direction.
The pro-Russian region, home to Moscow's Black Sea Fleet, will hold a potentially explosive vote on Sunday on whether to split from Ukraine and join Russia threatening to tear the country apart.
Kerry handed over proposals on a diplomatic way forward to Lavrov when the two men met twice in Paris and Rome last week, and which were refined after they talked by phone on Saturday.
But, in a televised meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Lavrov said Kerry's ideas "do not suit us very much" and that his US counterpart had changed his mind after initially agreeing to come to Moscow.
The Russian government, he said, will now make a series of counter-proposals "on the basis of international law and take into account the interests of all Ukrainians without exception."
Washington hit back, claiming Moscow was not serious in its efforts, as it had snubbed talks with Ukraine's interim leadership, brought in by parliament after the pro-Russia president Viktor Yanukovych fled the country last month.
Kerry is prepared to take part in talks "if and when we see concrete evidence that Russia is prepared to engage" with Washington's proposals, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
The US wants to see an end to Russian military activities in southern Crimea and that Moscow allows independent observers from the OSCE into the area.
"We want to see a halt in the drive for annexation of Crimea," Psaki said, as the clock ticks down to Sunday's referendum.
The US proposals would also help set up talks between Russia and Ukraine, perhaps through some kind of contact group being put together by the US and its EU allies.
Psaki bluntly rejected any suggestion that Kerry was shirking his responsibility to meet with Lavrov.
"He never shies away from hopping on a plane or having an in-person meeting, but we want to ensure that that is undertaken with seriousness on the other end as well," Psaki said.
The global community is seeking to shore up the interim Ukrainian prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who is due to visit the White House on Wednesday, ahead of snap presidential elections in May.
But Moscow is refusing point blank to talk to the interim leaders, maintaining they have been put in place illegitimately.
"The point is we're not just going to walk into something, where they're just going to say 'no, no, no' to everything and we've travelled all the way there. We're not going to do that," a State Department official said, asking not to be named.
President Barack Obama's welcome for Yatsenyuk shows the United States "believes the Ukrainian government has responsibly filled the vacuum left by the sudden, hasty and voluntary departure" of Yanukovych, White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
In his latest call to a prominent world leader on the crisis, Obama spoke Monday to President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan about Ukraine, the National Security Council said on Twitter.
Kazakhstan is a key potential member of the Eurasian Economic Union that Putin hopes to set up with ex-Soviet states. So was Ukraine.
But Yanukovych's ouster and Ukraine's expected turn towards the West leaves the plan for the bloc supposed to compete with the EU in doubt.

Rival Ukraine rallies raise tensions as Crimea crisis deepens

KIEV: Thousands took to the streets for rival pro- and anti-Kremlin rallies across Ukraine on Sunday as the West and Moscow dug in their heels over a deepening crisis in Crimea.
The protests come after a new marathon round of phone calls by US President Barack Obama seeking to defuse the Cold War-style standoff in the ex-Soviet state.
Tensions in Ukraine's Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which has come under de facto control by Russian forces, have resulted in a new face-off between Russia and the West, with each side imposing sanctions or warning of further prohibitive measures to force the other to back down.
Foreign observers have failed to get into Crimea, a majority Russophone region of Ukraine, to get a first-hand look at the situation on the ground and were forced to turn back on Saturday after pro-Kremlin gunmen fired warning shots.
Ukrainian border guards said Saturday that about 60 Russian military lorries had entered the rugged peninsula of two million in the last 24 hours by land and sea, a sign that Moscow was far from pulling back.
They also said "Russian extremists" had attacked a Crimea radar post, in the latest move by pro-Russian forces who have surrounded Ukrainian military bases and taken at least one missile defence unit.
"Armed attackers in military uniform and civil clothes broke the door and entered the building. Radio technic units and telecommunication cables were dissembled and destroyed," the border guards said in a statement in English on their website.
Sunday marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko and patriotic rallies were planned in Kiev and -- in a show of defiance towards Russia -- in Crimea's key cities of Simferopol and Sevastopol.
The rallies are also significant ahead of controversial plans by Crimea's regional pro-Moscow government to hold a referendum on joining Russia on March 16, which could lead to a formal annexation of the territory.
In the eastern city of Donetsk, a former stronghold of Ukraine's ousted president Viktor Yanukovych and the site of regular protests in recent days, there were fears of clashes as pro-Kiev demonstrators planned to celebrate Shevchenko, while pro-Russian protesters were due to hold a counter-rally.
The 19th-century poet has been credited with creating the modern Ukrainian language and the idea of Ukraine as a nation, giving the new Wester-backed government in Kiev a powerful opportunity on Sunday to revive some nationalist fervour in the face of Russia's incursion.