Visa posts $514m in net income

NEW YORK - Visa Inc., the world’s biggest payments network, hit a 52-week high in New York trading after posting results that exceeded most analysts’ forecasts and saying a yearlong skid in consumer spending has ended.

Net income for the fiscal fourth quarter ended Sept. 30 was $514 million, or 69 cents a share, compared with a year-earlier loss of $356 million, or 45 cents, tied to the settlement of an antitrust lawsuit, the San Francisco-based company said yesterday in a statement. Adjusted income, which excludes one-time items, was 74 cents a share, 2 cents higher than the average estimate of 26 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

The shift toward a cashless society, fueled by a growing preference for debit cards, helped Visa and number two payment processor MasterCard Inc. ride out the recession even as the unemployment rate neared 10 percent. Both companies fared better than banks that issue their cards because networks don’t make loans, insulating them from record defaults. Visa might spend up to $1 billion on a stock buyback, which runs until Sept. 30.

Visa advanced $2.67, or 3.6 percent, to $76.57 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, and advanced as high as $78.02, the highest since July 30, 2008. The shares have gained 46 percent this year.

US payment volume, a measure of total spending on Visa’s network, slid 1 percent in the quarter, a “solid’’ improvement from the 3 percent decline in the quarter ended June 30, chief financial officer Byron Pollitt said on a conference call. US spending grew 1 percent in the final month of the quarter and 3 percent in the first three weeks of October, the first positive growth in a year, he said.

MasterCard plans to report third-quarter results on Nov. 3. -- BLOOMBERG NEWS

NEW YORK - Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. fell the most in New York trading in 22 years after the largest US tire maker forecast a North American operating loss this quarter.

The outlook came as the Akron, Ohio-based company said third-quarter net income more than doubled to $72 million, or 30 cents a share, from $31 million, or 13 cents, a year earlier. Sales fell 15 percent to $4.4 billion.

Chief financial officer Darren Wells told analysts on a call yesterday that operating income in North America will decline in a range of $75 million to $125 million this quarter from the previous three months.

Third-quarter profit on that basis was $2 million, the lowest for Goodyear’s four regions. North America is its biggest region by revenue.

“They didn’t make hardly any money in North America,’’ said Saul Ludwig, an analyst at Keybanc Capital Markets Inc. in Cleveland. He rates the shares “buy.’’

Goodyear fell $3.28, or 20 percent, to $13.46 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. That the shares’ biggest daily percentage drop since Oct. 19, 1987, and the steepest slide yesterday in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The tire maker credited cost-cutting efforts and lower materials prices for the increase in third-quarter earnings. The profit was Goodyear’s first in four quarters. Goodyear has been reducing expenses by cutting output, shifting production to lower-cost plants, and eliminating about 5,800 jobs this year, including 300 in the third quarter. -- BLOOMBERG NEWS

NEW YORK - ConocoPhillips, the US oil company that announced plans this month for $10 billion in divestitures, said third-quarter profits fell 71 percent after a collapse in crude and natural-gas prices.

Net income dropped to $1.5 billion, or $1 a share, from $5.19 billion, or $3.39, a year earlier, Houston-based ConocoPhillips said yesterday in a statement. Excluding such items as a one-time gain of $33 million that ConocoPhillips announced on Oct. 2, per-share profit was about 98 cents, 4 cents higher than the average of 14 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Oil futures averaged $68.24 in the third quarter, down 42 percent from a year earlier. The average gas price plunged even more, 62 percent, and gasoline and diesel prices failed to keep pace with crude, squeezing profit margins for refiners. Among the nation’s major oil companies, ConocoPhillips has the largest US refining capacity and the highest domestic gas output.

“Given their exposure to refining and North American natural gas, they were probably going to take more of an earnings hit relative to last year than their larger peers,’’ said Brian Youngberg, an analyst at Edward Jones near St. Louis who has a “buy’’ rating on ConocoPhillips shares and owns none. “In situations like that, you’re trying to reduce the damage.’’

ConocoPhillips fell $1.41, or 2.8 percent, to $49.49 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.

ConocoPhillips, the third-largest US oil company, is first among the nation’s biggest producers to report third-quarter earnings. Exxon Mobil Corp. of Irving, Texas, is scheduled to announce its results today. San Ramon, Calif.-based Chevron Corp. plans to report earnings Oct. 30.

Market indicators for fuel prices and crude costs showed third-quarter profit margins for US refiners narrowed by 37 percent from a year earlier, ConocoPhillips said in an Oct. 2 statement.

Earnings from the company’s refining business plunged 88 percent to $99 million. -- BLOOMBERG NEWS