Despite a decrease in revenue, Kraft Foods has managed to post an 11 percent rise in profits for its fiscal second quarter. This result surpassed analyst expectations and has led Kraft Foods to enhance its outlook for the rest of the fiscal year, banking on a recent restructuring effort and the improvement of its products.
According to company CEO Irene Rosenfeld, Kraft’s higher-priced products are still managing to lure shoppers, but that Kraft will now focus on increasing volume and product variety rather than prices. She also credited the company’s three-year turnaround plan with its surprisingly strong performance this quarter.
As part …read more

In its fiscal second quarter, Discover saw its earnings fall more than $20 million compared to this time last year. In 2008’s fiscal second quarter, Discover earned $234 million. This year, the earnings dropped to about $209 million.
And really, that number is much better than reality considering that Discover got almost a half billion dollars from a lawsuit settlement. Without that settlement, Discover would have been in the red.
That said, investors were seemingly happy with the news from Discover. Shares for Discover jumped about 4% to about $9.30.
Why is Discover struggling? Most analysts agree that the economy and the resulting …read more