Weekly Market Wrap: 3/23/2012
Friday, March 23, 5:16 PM ET

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Hi. I'm Sayoko Murase. Welcome to the 'Weekly Market Wrap' for Friday March 23, 2012.

The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average were lower for the week while the Nasdaq was at a gain for the week in late Friday trading.

Crude oil futures are slightly lower this week, trading around $106.94 per barrel on Friday afternoon.

Gold futures are slightly higher this week, to $1664.59 an ounce in afternoon trading.

In notable economic news this week, the Commerce Department said that new-home sales fell by 1.6% last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 313,000 homes.

In corporate news this week, UPS (NYSE:UPS) announced plans to acquire shipper TNT for $6.9 billion.

Tiffany (NYSE:TIF) announced that fourth-quarter profits fell by 1.6% to $178.4 million, or $1.39 a share, missing estimates of $1.42 a share. However, the company announced that full year earnings should $4.05 per share, ahead of estimates of $3.92 per share.

Shares are higher by about 7.7 percent.

Adobe Systems (NASDAQ:ADBE) announced that it earned $284.5 million, or 57 cents a share, on revenue of $1.045 billion in the first quarter. Analysts had expected earnings of 57 cents a share on revenue of $1.053 billion.

General Mills (NYSE:GIS) announced that earnings fell by 0.2% though sales were 13% higher. The company earned $391.5 million, or 58 cents per share, for the fiscal quarter that ended on February 26, versus $392.1 million, or 59 cents per share in the same period last year. Adjusted earnings were 55 cents versus 56 cents, and sales were $4.12 billion versus $3.65 billion. Analysts had expected earnings of 56 cents per share on revenues of $4.09 billion.

FedEx (NYSE:FDX) reported that it earned $521 million, or $1.65 per share, versus $231 million, or 73 cents per share, in the same period last year. Revenue increased by $10.56 billion from $9.66 billion in the same period last year. Analysts expected the firm to earn $1.34 per share on revenue of $10.6 billion. The company said it expects fourth-quarter earnings to be between $1.75 and $2 per share, and full year earnings to be in the range of $6.35 to $6.60 per share.

This is the 'Weekly Market Wrap' for Friday March 23, 2012. Please join us on Monday for the 'Week Ahead Market Report."

For MarketNewsVideo.com, I'm Sayoko Murase.