Stocks to Watch: Deere, Salesforce.com

NEW YORK -- Deere (DE) reports earnings Wednesday and Wall Street is looking for a profit of $1.88 a share from the agricultural equipment maker in its fiscal fourth quarter on revenue of $8.85 billion.

Shares of Deere have risen roughly 11% so far in 2012.

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Salesforce.com (CRM), the cloud computing company, on Tuesday delivered a 35% year-over-year revenue increase in its latest quarter.

The company reported non-GAAP earnings of $49.6 million, or 33 cents a share, for the third quarter on revenue of $788 million. Analysts expected profit of 32 cents a share on revenue of $776.5 million.

Salesforce.com forecast non-GAAP earnings of 38 cents to 40 cents a share in its fiscal fourth quarter on revenue ranging from $825 million to $830 million. Wall Street's current consensus view is for a profit of 40 cents a share on revenue of $829.9 million.

Salesforce.com Shares Buoyed by 35% Jump in Revenue

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News Corp (NWSA)has expressed interest to CBS (CBS)about acquiring its Simon & Schuster book business, according to people familiar with the talks, The Wall Street Journal reported.

News Corp owns HarperCollins Publishers and the Journal.

The people described the discussions as preliminary and cautioned that a deal isn't imminent, the newspaper said.

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Zale, the jewelry retailer, reported a wider-than-expected fiscal first-quarter loss on Tuesday.

Zale posted a loss of $28.3 million, or 88 cents per share, on revenue of $357.5 million. Analysts were expecting a loss of 68 cents a share on revenue of $365.6 million.

Zale said it expects to be profitable for fiscal 2013.

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Scholastic (SCHL), the publishing company, lowered its fiscal-year outlook after Tuesday's closing bell.

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-- Written by Joseph Woelfel



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