MORNING NEWS

UBS Group reported a fourth-quarter net profit that came ahead of analysts’ expectations, and said it aims to buy back shares valued at up to $3 billion this year. The Zurich-based bank said Tuesday that net profit for the quarter was $770 million compared with a loss of $279 million in the year-earlier period, when its results were hit by costs related to the integration of Credit Suisse. Analysts had expected a net profit of $483 million, according to consensus estimates compiled by the bank. UBS said it plans to repurchase $1 billion of its own stock in the first half and aims to buy back up to an additional $2 billion in the second half.

Porsche AG said it would discuss with Lutz Meschke, its finance chief, and Detlev von Platen, executive board member for sales and marketing, an early termination of their contracts. The German sports-car maker said late Saturday that it authorized the chairman of its supervisory board to enter discussions with the executives about an amicable early termination of their appointments as members of the company’s executive board. Meschke has been a member of Porsche’s executive board since 2009 with responsibility for finance and IT and its deputy chair since 2015.

Apple’s iPhone sales fell in the all-important December quarter, a sign that its artificial-intelligence software has yet to kick off a new cycle of growth for its most valuable product. On Thursday, Apple reported that iPhone sales for the quarter were down nearly 1% from the prior year to $69.1 billion, a miss from the $70.7 billion analysts were projecting, according to FactSet. Apple’s total revenue was $124.3 billion, rising almost 4% from the same quarter last year. Net income was $36.3 billion, up more than 7% from the prior year. Analysts, on average, had projected revenue of $124.3 billion and net income of $35.6 billion.

ABB has reported a strong increase in fourth-quarter profits and sales, with momentum in the Electrification business continuing to drive results. The Swiss industrial technology company said on Thursday that fourth-quarter net profit was up to $987 million from $921 million a year earlier, on like-for-like sales up 4% to $8.59 billion. The results exceeded analysts' expectations, based on the company's own consensus of net profit of $960 million and sales of $8.37 billion.

The computer accessories manufacturer Logitech performed surprisingly well in terms of both sales and profits in the important Christmas quarter. The company once again raised its outlook. Turnover in the third quarter of the 2024/25 financial year rose by 7 per cent to 1.34 billion US dollars, as Logitech announced late on Tuesday evening. At constant currencies, revenue would have risen by 6 per cent. The adjusted gross margin (non-GAAP) improved by 90 basis points to 43.2 per cent.

Global chip stocks slumped Monday after Chinese artificial-intelligence company DeepSeek said it had developed AI models that nearly matched American rivals despite using inferior chips, raising questions about the need to spend huge sums on advanced gear provided by Nvidia and other tech giants to train AI models. DeepSeek said last week that the performance of its latest R1 model was on par with OpenAI's o1-mini model that the ChatGPT maker released in September. The announcement came after DeepSeek said in a late-December report that it used a cluster of more than 2,000 Nvidia chips to train its other V3 model, compared with the tens of thousands of chips that are normally used for training models of a similar size.

American Express turned in solid quarterly results Friday, increased its dividend, and highlighted record levels of card member spending. However, investors seemed to be shrug off the positives, sending shares down 1.4% to $321.34 in trading Friday. For 2025, the credit-card company, which generally has an affluent customer base, said it expects revenue growth of between 8% and 10% and earnings per share between $15 and $15.50. Analysts forecast earnings of $15.24. Total revenue net of interest expense was $17.18 billon, slightly above the consensus estimate of $17.16 billion.

Givaudan reported a rise in full-year earnings on adjusted sales that saw a double-figure percentage growth. The Swiss flavor-and-fragrance company said Friday that full-year net profit for 2024 rose 22.1% to 1.09 billion Swiss francs ($1.20 billion) compared with 893 million Swiss francs a year prior. Analysts had expected net profit of 1.11 billion francs according to a company-compiled consensus. Full-year sales rose 12.3% on a like-for-like basis to 7.41 billion francs versus analyst expectations of 7.39 billion francs. The company said it has seen average like-for-like sales growth of 7.2% between 2021 and 2024.

A 25% tariff on Canadian imports would undermine America's industrial competitiveness by increasing costs for U.S. aluminum users of Canadian aluminum by $1.5 billion to $2 billion a year, Alcoa CEO William Oplinger says. Canada is the U.S.'s largest supplier of aluminum from smelters. President Trump has indicated he's considering levying 25% duty on imports from Canada. Alcoa operates two aluminum smelters in Canada and is a partner in a third one.

Netflix is raising prices across its existing U.S. plans, aiming to capitalize on surging demand after the streaming service posted record subscriber gains in the fourth quarter. The company’s ad-supported tier will cost $7.99 a month, up from $6.99, while the cost of the premium tier is increasing by $2, to $24.99. Netflix said Tuesday that it brought in 18.9 million new subscribers in the fourth quarter, a 44% increase from a year earlier, and raised its 2025 revenue guidance slightly. Shares in the company jumped more than 13% in after-hours trading.