Afternoon Roundup: Today's Top Stories

Michelle Zayed, The Motley Fool
Updated

At The Motley Fool, we know our readers like to be informed. We've scouted out today's most relevant news items and brought them to you all on one page. We hope you find this midday edition informative and useful.

Aside from the latest Fed move, here are the company-specific stories.

Internet companies Nextag, Yelp, and Expedia (NAS: EXPE) are gearing up to fight Google (NAS: GOOG) on Wednesday over antitrust issues. The company is being accused of punishing sites that offer services and goods that directly compete with some of Google's products. The three companies have said Google redirects consumers on the search engine to its own website before any of theirs. Nextag, which looks for lower retail prices, has gone as far as to say Google prohibits it from bidding for higher-up ads in the search. Google explained that these ads are designed to take costumers to a place where they can actually buy a product and not simply be redirected to other Web pages. Read more at The Wall Street Journal.

(NAS: ORCL) reported a higher-than-expected profit for its first fiscal quarter. The company announced that it has made a profit of $0.48, excluding some items, and a rise in sales of 12%. Sales revenue was $8.37 billion, matching the average projection. Oracle sells software to help companies optimize their operations and combines hardware with its own database, where its stores information for its customers. CEO Larry Ellison has spent more than $40 billion since 2005 on takeovers to offer more products. The better performance helps ease worries that a slow economy would stifle technology. Read more at Bloomberg.

With car demand in the U.S. low but sales moving in China, General Motors (NYS: GM) hopes to ease concerns about how it would weather a second recession. Chief Executive Daniel Ackerson said he's concerned about a possible second dip but that his company's U.S. sales have been able to hold up so far, with an 18% increase in August. Ackerson said he does expect to see a slowdown in China, with only a 5% to 10% increase in sales there. The automaker sold 2.35 million units in 2010 in China, more than the 2.2 million it sold in the United States. Read more at Reuters.

shareholders could reap as much as an estimated 49% in profits if the company splits between its drink and food business, joining the wave of breakups at companies such as Kraft (NYS: KFT) and Tyco. The company, which is the largest snack-food producer and second largest soft-drink maker, has fallen 9.7% on its stock price, wiping out nearly $11 billion in market value. The company's drink business has been losing market share to competitors such as Dr. Pepper Snapple Group (NYS: DPS) , while its snack business continues to thrive. Though the company has not mentioned any split, it did announce it had created two new groups to market snacks and drinks together and push for snack innovation. Read more Bloomberg.

So there you have it -- the top financial stories for this afternoon. If you're interested in getting all the news and commentary on these stocks, sign up for My Watchlist -- it's free!

At the time thisarticle was published Michelle Zayed doesn't own any stocks mentioned.The Motley Fool owns shares of Oracle and Google.Motley Fool newsletter serviceshave recommended buying shares of General Motors and Google. Try any of our Foolish newsletter servicesfree for 30 days. We Fools don't all hold the same opinions, but we all believe thatconsidering a diverse range of insightsmakes us better investors. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.

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