One Up & Three Down

Amex Profits

American Express has seen its quarterly profits climb following strong rise in credit card use. This has been helped along especially by international cardholders. The US based credit card company saw profits for the three months to June reach $1 billion (£513 million), from $945 million (£460 million) in the same period last year.

BP profits down

Falling production and refinery problems have dented BP’s second quarter earnings, which dipped slightly. Replacement cost profit for the April to June period was down 1% on last year to $6.09 billion (£3 billion).

Sport Chain feel Strain

Mike Ashley’s Sports World empire has delivered more bad news for shareholders as the retailer warned of limited earnings growth for the year ahead. The group posted underlying earnings of £191 million for the year to the end of April, but said there would be little improvement on this for its 2008 results. The company has seen shares fall to less than 200p from the 300p opening price on flotation in February. The performance has come as a blow to Ashley, who bought Newcastle United FC earlier this month.

Bloomsbury Profits Down

Not even Harry Potter could work his magic on the Bloomsbury share price that fell 7p to 180p, despite the book publisher selling 2.65 million (UK) & 8 million (US) copies of the final instalment of author J K Rowling’s series about the boy wizard.