Chevron, Coventry: Friday's Headlines

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Here are the top stock market headlines for the morning of Friday, Oct. 30, 2009.

Friday's Earnings Roundup

• Chevron (CVX Quote) is expected to post a third-quarter profit of $1.39 a share on revenue of $48.96 billion, according to a poll of analysts by Thomson Reuters. Both figures would be down sharply from year-ago levels, which would make Chevron's results similar to those of rivals Exxon Mobil (XOM Quote) and ConocoPhillips (COP Quote).
• Sony (SNE Quote) reported a smaller-than-expected 26.3 billion yen ($289 million) quarterly loss as cost cuts combined with healthy sales of PlayStation 3 game consoles and Michael Jackson albums. Sony is now projecting a 95 billion yen ($1 billion) loss compared with an initial forecast of a 120 billion yen ($1.3 billion) loss. The new forecast is marginally better than the 98.9 billion yen loss it suffered the previous fiscal year.
• Coventry Health Care (CVH Quote) reported third-quarter adjusted earnings of 68 cents a share, easily topping the Thomson Reuters average estimate of 54 cents a share. Revenue climbed 17.7% from the year-ago quarter to $3.44 billion, coming in just shy of the $3.48 billion consensus target. Looking ahead, Coventry raised its earnings guidance for the full year, upping the range to $2.01 to $2.03 a share from the previous guidance range of $1.85 to $1.95 a share.
• Duke Energy (DUK Quote) posted third-quarter adjusted earnings of 40 cents a share, coming in two cents better than the Thomson Reuters average estimate. Revenue slipped 3.2% from a year ago to $3.4 billion, below the consensus target of $3.8 billion. Duke did reaffirm its full-year earnings guidance of $1.20 a share, which is a penny better than the current average analyst estimate.
• Alcatel-Lucent (ALU Quote) reported a third-quarter loss of 182 million euros ($270 million), widening from the year-ago loss of 40 million euros. Revenue fell by 9% from a year ago to 3.69 billion euros, below expectations Alcatel would say it had revenue of 3.91 billion euros.
• Constellation Energy (CEG Quote) said it had third-quarter adjusted earnings of $1.23 a share, beating the average analyst estimate of $1.07 a share, according to Thomson Reuters. Revenue dropped 24.3% from last year to $4.03 billion, which disappointed analysts who were looking for revenue of $4.48 billion. However, Constellation offered strong guidance for the full year, saying it expects earnings in a range of $3.25 to $3.45 a share, better than the $3.10-a-share target analysts are looking for.