About 25% of the S&P 500 companies narrate results this week, and they’ll show the state of the energy, consumer, and industrial sectors. Here’s what to look since

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by Ben Steverman

The summer’s earnings spell has had as many surprises and plot twists as a Hollywood blockbuster, and it’s only halfway through. In the nearest few days, almost 25% of Standard & Poor’s 500 companies are set to unveil their second-quarter results. On top of that, traders will closely watch crucial economic reports (BusinessWeek.com, 7/24/08) attached office, consumer confidence, and the gross domestic product.

Most major financial companies have already posted results, which have been carefully scrutinized in the same proportion that the credit crisis lingers. Companies in other industries still have a chance to impress, assure again, or disconcert investors by their quarterly updates.

According to Thomson Reuters, second-quarter earnings for the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index are expected to fall 17.9% from a year gone. That’s and nothing else slightly worse than analysts had predicted, and much better than the by three quarters, when results "sharply deviated" from predictions, says Ashwani Kaul, boss of research at Thomson Reuters (TRI).

The next several days will put those predictions to the test. Here are the major stocks to wait:

1. ExxonMobil (XOM)

With a market capitalization of $430 billion, ExxonMobil is the largest company in the world, and investors are expecting very boastful things when it reports proceeds July 31. Analysts are expecting memorial revenues, since oil prices climbed to new highs in the second quarter. According to analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, sales are expected to gross more than $144 billion, a 47% increase from a year since, while income are expected to rise 14%.

But own power to ExxonMobil meet the high expectations? Energy stocks "have had such an incredible run," says Michael Yoshikami, president and chief investing. strategist at YCMNET Advisors.

The biggest worry may not be ExxonMobil’s second-quarter results, but what executives say about the rest of the year. Crude oil hit a record above $147 per barrel in at daybreak July, but oil at present trades exceeding $123, a 16% decline. Georges Yared, president of Yared Investment Research, says lower oil prices could take a big bite out of the profits that investors and analysts are expecting from ExxonMobil in the second half of the year.

2. Disney (DIS) and Viacom (VIA)

With the price of a gallon of gasoline near $4 nationwide, investors still worry about U.S. consumer spending. Two large consumer discretionary public funds reporting profits. this week are Viacom on July 29 and Walt Disney Co. on July 30.

Despite worries about a slump in advertising spending, these media companies are still expected to boost profits compared to a year ago. However, news from other consumer stocks has rattled investors recently.

A very different consumer stock, retailer Costco Wholesale (COST) warned July 23 of lower-than-expected profits, news that sent its shares falling 15% (BusinessWeek.com, 7/24/08). The discounter was one of the few retail shares distil holding up, but its news is "a good indication that the consumer is starting to get squeezed," says Dave Rovelli, managing director of equity commercial at Canaccord Adams.

Disney, the larger of the brace companies, owns a variety of businesses, including radical verb parks, movie studios, ABC television, ESPN, and radio stations. The set’s diverse properties could relief protect it from a downturn.

One positive sign for Disney is evidence that this has been a upright summer for movie attendance, says Yoshikami.

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Friends and family are mourning the deaths of a distinguished Auburn surgeon, a United Airlines pilot and her 10-year-old daughter in the crash of a private plane Sunday boreal of Arlington.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators were at the scene of the shatter Monday trying to resolve what caused the single-engine Cessna 172N to crash in a heavily wooded area, killing Dr. Virgil Becker, 54; Brenda L. Houston, 47; and Houston’s daughter, Elizabeth Crews, both of Enumclaw.

Investigators put on’t expect to have answers toward weeks, said NTSB Deputy Regional Chief Debra Eckrote.

Houston was piloting the plane.

“The direct was very experienced,” said Skagit County sheriff’s Deputy Will Reichardt. “It is not known if weather was a constituent or not at this point in the inquiry.”

Friends of Becker’s related the orthopedic surgeon had wearied the weekend at his vacation home on San Juan Island with his family. Becker’s wife and daughter took the ferry home, in which case Becker hitched a ride with Houston and her daughter, the friends said.

Longtime friend and fellow pilot Cathy McDonald said Houston had been a pilot with respect to United Airlines for about 15 years, and before that she flew despite Pan American World Airways.

“She had a great reputation as a pilot; she’s been flying for almost 30 years,” McDonald said. “Some horrible tragedy must’ve happened.”

Elizabeth had proficient fourth grade at Byron Kibler Elementary in Enumclaw, said Enumclaw School District spokeswoman Gerrie Garton.

Houston’s husband and Elizabeth’s father, Tom Crews, told KING-TV he lost moiety his heart Sunday night.

“I lost my baby. But she’s with her natural. She loved flying with her spring, and the two of them are flying together. They’re happy. We lost half our family,” Crews said.

Becker had a private practice in Auburn and was a quarter-staff surgeon at Auburn Regional Medical Center, assistant administrator Pat Bailey said. Becker also had a law degree and often was consulted on ethical issues at the hospital, Bailey reported.

In the third of a three-part series, columnist Christine Comaford offers her advice on managing the people of the successful business equation

by means of Christine Comaford

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In my previous sum of two units columns I’ve covered two of the three cornerstones every business needs: an powerful business model (BusinessWeek.com, 6/25/08) and money (BusinessWeek.com, 7/11/08). It’s time to address the people part in this cylindrical body.

Over the course of this series, I’ve told the fiction of two entrepreneurs who needed to perfect their business archetype and give the signification of their financing strategy. Now I’ll refer to them again as I show them how to expand their brain trust with the right people.

Remember, these entrepreneurs desideratum to form a physical studio where both professional musicians and hobbyists can jam together, record CDs, and showcase themselves to possibly make safe representation. They likewise want to sell CDs from participating artists and create a thrifty retail store (both online and offline), along with a small restaurant that has a limited menu, coffee drinks, and beer and wine. They hired an MBA to write their traffic plan (BusinessWeek, 1/7/08), but he had never raised a dime of financing.

In today’s economic climate, it is essential to have a seasoned team, a wildly path to return, and a staged rollout plan. The business these guys want to raise has multiple pressure points: retail, restaurant, and geography—all targeted to creative artists and hobbyists—and few selling points targeted to client heartache. Yowch.

What are the first questions a prospective investor will ask? People questions, of course! Here were some of mine: Do you or your team members have experience in the music industry? Retail industry? Restaurant industry? No? How about your advisory enter: Do its members have being obliged this experience? No? Oh&no advisory board? Why?

It’s moderate to run up an advisory board, which brings you phenomenal expertise at naught up-front cost. See my column (BusinessWeek, 2/1/07) on this topic.

What is the duo’s biggest problem at this moment? Credibility. They have not a part. They are diving into a profession they know very tiny about. Without seasoned team members or advisers, how can one possibly trust their revenue and cost projections? They need trustworthiness, pronto. I’d recommend they complete the following steps to build up human capital as soon as possible.

1. Lock in advisers who are veterans not more than each of the industries they’ll be doing occupation in. Timeline for this? Like, very lately.

2. Secure draw in staff to work with the advisers to final account and edit the revenue and cost projections. They can decide hourly bookkeepers at in any degree local accounting firm or at of the like kind Web sites as www.Accountemps.com or www.TeamDoubleClick.com.

3. Make sure all team members (employees, founders, contractors, advisers, web developers, strategic alliances, everyone!) index a confidentiality and proprietary-inventions agreement. I explain why in this previous array of less front than depth (BusinessWeek, 5/12/08).

4. Follow standard processes when recruiting. Use STAR to screen candidates, then top-grade those you are solemnly considering. My earlier column (BusinessWeek, 4/23/08) on those two techniques will help.

5. Maintain a backup bench. Always be on the lookout for the next adviser, contractor, or employee. You slip on’t want to be empty-handed when a key salary quits and you exigency a speedy re-establishment.

6. Refine your networking skills. See my row (BusinessWeek, 11/28/07) on how to win friends and influence outcomes—a huge part of your success will be based adhering the ability to get others to help you.

7. Build a culture of transparency and know to what degree to course-correct. See my column on these strategies (BusinessWeek, 5/7/07). I’ve found that when key executives cop to their mistakes, the team will make in to fix at all problems. All startups have problems. Set up the right culture to handle them.

By concentrating in succession the people part of the equation, our two entrepreneurs will possess a far better chance at putting their business archetype into performance and getting financed. And of course, once you master financed, you need to stay financed. Often, this requires continual tweaks to your business model. Remember: People, money, model are tightly linked. Refer to this three-column series if you commit to memory stuck. Good luck.

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Persistent pollution fears and China's concerns about palladium in Tibet moreover remained problems for organizers nine days before the Games begin.

China had committed to providing media with the same independence to report on the Games as they enjoyed at previous Olympics, but journalists require this week complained of finding access to sites deemed sensitive to its communist leadership blocked.

"I regret that it now appears BOCOG has announced that there will be limitations forward website access for the period of Games time," IOC press chief Kevan Gosper related, referring to Beijing's Olympic organizers.

"I also since understand that some IOC officials negotiated with the Chinese that some sensitive sites would be blocked on the basis they were not considered Games related," he said.

Attempts at the requisite press centre to access the website of Amnesty International, which released a report on Monday slamming China for failing to honor its Olympic full of fellow-feeling rights pledges, continued to show ineffectual by the agency of mid-week.

Other websites, including those relating to the banned spiritual group Falun Gong, are also inaccessible.

Beijing organizers uttered censorship would not stop journalists doing their jobs in reporting the Games.

"We are going to do our best to facilitate the foreign media to do their reporting work through the Internet," BOCOG spokesman Sun Weide told a news conference.

"I would remind you that Falun Gong is an evil, fake religion which has been banned by the Chinese government."

Reporters without Borders, a Paris-based media watchdog, said it was increasingly concerned that there would have being many cases of censorship during the Olympics.

"We condemn the IOC's failure to do anything about this, and we are greater degree skeptical surrounding its ability to ensure that the media are able to report freely," the group said in a statement.

SMOG-WATCH

But the admission that the Internet will be in part censored is sure to lead to added criticism toward the Olympics host nation, which is already deflecting barbs over everything from the quality of its air to its human rights record.

On Wednesday, Chinese experts said they were working on emergency plans to keep Olympic skies clear, including keeping cars on the farther side the roads in nearby provinces, but expected not to need them supposing that not unusual pollution-trapping weather continued.

The city has even now banned cars from roads on alternate days under an odd-and-even license layer project, suspended some factory production and opened new subway lines to try to clear its notorious pollution.

"The probability of needing stronger measures is very small," said Zhu Tong, a professor at Peking University and superior of a technical group advising Games organizers without ceasing air quality.

Slightly cooler temperatures and rain on Tuesday have thinned the haze, but with below-par air quality readings adhering several days since the emergency measures took effect on July 20, worries remain nearly athletes wheezing air laced through fumes and dust.

Experts said that given the bulk of Beijing, the volume of pollutants that flow into the incorporated town from other parts of China, and the short time period before the Games enter upon upon the body August 8, there was little more that could be done.

"In this short a time-frame, even if you took completely the personal cars off the public road, you might inquire another 10 percent melioration, limit it would be small," uttered Staci Simonich, an analytical chemist at Oregon State University who has been studying Beijing's air status.

"The best thing that could happen during the Games is to have it rain each ignorance," she said.

China also has other issues upon the body its mind, including carelessness in the restive district of Tibet, where official media said Chinese police had been mobilized to ensure "absolute security free from a single lapse."

The remote division erupted into rioting in March that sparked protests across China's ethnic Tibetan areas and brought into focus international criticism of Beijing's policies on the issue.

The Tibet Daily announced in continuance Wednesday tough policing during the Games on top of a sweeping security crackdown already in place. China is at labor to avoid a single one shows of defiance by pro-Tibet independence groups that could embarrass the government before a worldwide audience.

(Additional reporting by Emma Graham-Harrison, Lindsay Beck, Chris Buckley, Liu Zhen and Simon Rabinovitch; Writing by the agency of Lindsay Beck; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

(For more stories visit our multimedia website "Road to Beijing" at

"Experiential" courses in derived from abroad locales so as the famous Civil War battlefield are the repaired rage in executive development

by Douglas MacMillan

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As a higher mentor for insurer Health Care Service (HCSC) in Dallas, Steve Thompson is used to large knowledge from his party mentor. But on a Tuesday morning in June, standing on a hill in eastern Pennsylvania, he heard from a new business adviser: General John Buford, a Union cavalry officer in the U.S. Civil War.

Thompson was learning about Buford’s leadership prowess in Gettysburg, site of the famous engagement of 1863. Military writer of history Cole C. Kingseed talked about to what degree Buford had been sent to survey the enemy nevertheless in the room dismounted his horsemen to defend a ridge, giving his colleagues an verge in the coming fight. "He had the courage to execute," said Thompson as executives from companies such during the time that State Farm and Nationwide (NFS) nodded in agreement. Then they moved in succession to Cemetery Hill to battle for whether Confederate General Robert E. Lee was a poor succession planner.

The three-day Gettysburg order, organized at a cost of up to $5,000 for human frame by the agency of the Conference Board, is part of a expanding tendency in leadership programs: experiential drilling. Even with shrinking budgets for lavish off-site events, companies are pouring cash into programs that promise unique ways to develop talent. Among those that have shipped managers on the farther side to Gettysburg: Pfizer (PFE), Sony (SNE), Honda Motor (HMC), Target (TGT), and the beleaguered Freddie Mac (FRE). The $12.3 billion market in conduct development is expected to expand annually by up to 5% over the nearest few years, according to research firm Bersin & Associates, almost duplicate the growth of overall corporate education. And Bersin has found one-third of companies now employment some form of experiential leadership development. That means more incentive to create offerings that generate buzz.

Along by Civil War battlefields, companies can sign up for leadership lessons involving sailing, archaeological digs, fire walking (walking barefoot over hot coals), and even horse whispering. The ability consultancy ChangeMaker, in Upper Rissington, Britain, takes groups of managers from companies of the like kind as Electronic Data Systems (EDS) and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) to East Africa, where they visit individual villages of the sprawling, semi-nomadic Maasai tribe. The cost: nearly $4,000 per head, plus airfare. At debriefing sessions, participants talk about how the Maasai maintain a consistent culture across such a large organization. ChangeMaker Chief Executive Chris Howe argues that "if you put people in a house of entertainment, if you lecture at them, they’re not discovering concerning themselves."

Maybe so, but paying for that insight may be a hard sell to human resources directors. It’s tough enough to gauge the go on traditional leadership programs, never mind trying to attach metrics to some executory’s newfound command of tribal politics or ability to communicate with horses. "For these to work, they have to have a strong connection betwixt what you see there, what you perceive, and what you’re going to face when you get back to the situation," says Michael Useem, a management professor at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Useem has taught MBA students and business professionals by engaging them in Shakespeare plays, modern dancing, hiking in Patagonia, meditation, and, yes, battlefield tours.

Even if some courses have dubious educational value, they can serve as incentives to rising stars. HCSC’s Thompson, for one, says traipsing around Gettysburg gave him "a sense of reward" in quest of a job well done. As with a lecture or video, the tips may not stick. But for the lucky executives who receive such special grooming, the drilling can twofold as a company-paid vacation.

See the reporter’s narrated glide show of his visit to Gettysburg.

See BusinessWeek’s slide show for a guide book to experiential leadership training programs.

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Hardline nationalists were imposthume to show their support to war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic forward Tuesday, while Serbian authorities and his legitimate team played a cat-and-mouse game over his extradition.

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The leader of the Bosnian Serbs in the 1992-95 Bosnia war, who is indicted for genocide, was arrested last week in Serbia. He had been without ceasing the run for 11 years, most recently living under an assumed name in the same manner with a bearded, long-haired alternative healer.

He is now in a Belgrade prison awaiting transfer to the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

Hardliners see him as a great man and defender of the Serb nation. They have put up posters with his image encircling the Serbian cardinal and say they expect tens of thousands to demonstrate peacefully in a "all-Serb" afternoon rally.

"This rally will be a symbol of hindrance, a symbol of the strength of those who love freedom more than anything," uttered Aleksandar Vucic of the nationalist Radical Party, one of the strongest parties in Serbia.

"We'll continue resisting dictatorship in Serbia, we'll continue raising the question of whose paramilitary forces arrested Radovan Karadzic, how and why."

Karadzic, with his military chieftain Ratko Mladic, is indicted for the slaughter of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica and the 43-month siege of Sarajevo, where greater degree than 11,000 people died from shelling, sniper fire, malnutrition and distemper.

TRADE BENEFITS

His delivery to The Hague is clew to Serbia's closer ties with the European Union, and his take up was seen at the same time that a distinct pro-Western signal by the country's fresh government, sworn in earlier this month.

Belgrade is now keen to toss him to The Hague as easily as possible to avoid boiling tension and protracted protests by nationalists, but also to unlock coveted EU trade benefits.

The EU postponed a decision on the trade deal on Tuesday, with diplomats saying they would wait for Karadzic's transferrence to The Hague.

Sources say the government is clever to approve his delivery, but the timing of the substantial transfer partly depends on each appeal filed by Karadzic's lawyer last week.

Serbian officials say it is a gesture by no chance of success, but it yet frustrates each extradition process burdened by unclear deadlines and tussles over legal detail.

"The law is not especial on how long the homage should wait (for the appeal to arrive)," Svetozar Vujacic, Karadzic's lawyer in Serbia, said put on Tuesday.

"It is also not written in the expressed command in what place the appeal may be sent from. Widely interpreted, it could be from Sydney, although of career I did not actually send it from Sydney."

He said he may be delivered of sent the appeal letter from Bosnia, and expected it to arrive in Belgrade "in 7 days at the earliest."

It is not clear if Serbian authorities will actually wait during the term of the seek reference of the case to arrive or rule that the deadline has passed and they can go ahead with the extradition.

Sources in the over-confidence services say there are dozens of options for an unobtrusive transfer of Karadzic to The Hague, involving disguised vehicles, secret exits, dawning transfers or decoy motorcades to fool the television crews staking lacking the prison, court and airport.

The lawyer has said Karadzic is in good turn of mind and preparing for his plea. He has already had two suits delivered for his court appearance, one light, one dark.

(more reporting by Ivana Sekularac and Ljilja Cvekic; editing by Robert Hart)