Blue Chip Profits News: Westfield Group (WDC)|WDC StocksWestfield Group (ASX:WDC)  is the largest retail property group in the world by equity market capitalisation. It has investment interests in 126 shopping centres in Australia, New Zealand and the United States

Westfield, which is among the blue chip stocks, revealed a full year 2011 profit of $1.53 billion, a 37.5% rise on the previous corresponding period, slightly ahead of analyst expectations.

Full year revenue climbed 10.5% to $1.46 billion, year on year.

WDC declared a final distribution of 24.2 cents, in line with expectations.

The group also announced it would start an on-market buyback of securities for up to 10% of its issued capital.

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ASX Blue Chip Stocks News: Woolworths (WOW)|ASX WOW SharesWoolworths (ASX:WOW) operates supermarkets, specialty and discount department stores, liquor and electronics stores throughout Australia. Woolworths also manufactures processed foods, exports and wholesales food and offers petrol retailing.  The Company also operates hotels which includes pubs, food, accommodation, and gaming operations.

ASX Blue chip supermarket giant Woolworths today announced 2Q sales growth of 5.1% to $14.1 billion compared to the previous corresponding quarter, this was in line with market expectations.

The 2Q sales results bought the 1H FY12 sales to $29.7 billion, a 5% increase on the previous year.

WOW also announced that it will sell its Dick Smith consumer electronics business following a strategic review that was announced in November.

Since the review the company said it has received a number of unsolicited approaches in relation to Dick Smith.

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ASX Blue Chip Stocks News: BHP Billiton (BHP)|ASX BHP SharesBHP Billiton (ASX:BHP) is an international resources company.  The Company’s principal business lines are mineral exploration and production, including coal, iron ore, gold, titanium, ferroalloys, nickel and copper concentrate, as well as petroleum exploration, production, and refining.

Blue chip stock BHP, today announced that its latest quarterly iron ore output increased 22% in the December quarter compared to the previous quarter.

BHP’s operations in Western Australia’s Pilbara region recorded record production on an annualized basis, as the company expanded its infrastructure base in the area.

The Melbourne based company said that it expects full-year production to marginally exceed prior guidance of 159 million tons per annum.

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ASX Blue Chip News: Westpac Banking Corporation (WBC)|WBC StocksWestpac Banking Corporation (ASX:WBC) is Australia’s oldest bank operating a significant banking franchise in Australia and New Zealand.  WBC is considered an ASX Blue Chip Share. The company has balanced exposures to retail, corporate and institutional sectors.

Westpac has been one of the more acquisitive banks domestically with successful takeovers of Bank of Melbourne and Challenge Bank and Trust Bank in New Zealand. More recently WBC has aggressively expanded its wealth management activities with the acquisition of Rothschild Australia Asset Management, BT Funds Management and Hastings Funds Management.

Westpac today held their AGM where it warned that the European debt crisis will continue to impact the price and possibly the availably of funding to Australia’s banking sector.

CEO Mrs Gail Kelly said the outlook for the global economic outlook remained mixed with Australia not immune to these headwinds, with growth slowing and consumer and business spending cautious.

Mrs Kelly also hinted that WBC may not pass on future interest rate cuts to borrowers in full, citing the impact of higher funding costs on interest rate margins.

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Blue Chip Stocks News: Westfield Group (WDC)|ASX WDC SharesWestfield Group (ASX:WDC)  is the largest retail property group in the world by equity market capitalisation. It has investment interests in 126 shopping centres in Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

Westfield, which is among the blue chip stocks, has released its 3rd quarter operating update for the nine months to 30 September 2011.

WDC reaffirmed its full year earnings forecast, saying it is seeing growth in all of its markets.

Current full year forecast for distribution per security is 48.4 cents, whilst operational segment earnings are expected to be 74.6 cents per security.

Westfield did outline their new development projects for the next few years with $1.25 Billion to be spent in 2012 and a further $1.5 Billion in 2013.

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Blue Chip Stocks News: BHP Billiton (BHP)|ASX BHP|BHP SharesBHP Billiton (ASX:BHP) is the world’s largest diversified resources company, with a global portfolio of high quality assets and more than 100 operations in 25 countries.

It is the biggest listed company on the Australian share market and is widely considered among the blue chip stocks.

It is an industry leader in most of the major commodities markets, including aluminium, coking and thermal coal, copper, manganese, iron ore, uranium, nickel, silver and titanium. On top of this, BHP has sizeable interests in oil, gas, natural gas and diamonds.

Today, BHP reported a 28% on-year increase in 1Q11 iron ore output. The increase was driven by greater system capability of the group’s WA rail infrastructure.

Petroleum production increased 19% in the same period, with BHP’s acquisition of the Fayetteville and Petrohawk shale businesses helping the result.

However copper output declined 24% over the year amid strikes and lower ore grades at the Escondida mine in Chile.

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Blue Chip Shares News: Commonwealth Bank (CBA)|ASX CBA SharesCommonwealth Bank (ASX:CBA) is the nation’s largest bank by market capitalisation, holds the greatest amount of deposits, the most home loans, and also controls a fair chunk of the wealth management market with its Colonial First State behemoth.

It is the second biggest company in the Australian share market, and is widely considered a blue chip stock among investors.

Today, CBA reported a FY11 cash profit of $6.84 billion, up 12% from the prior year.  The profit growth helped return on equity improve to 19.5%.

The result slightly topped analyst estimates of a $6.82 billion profit, whilst its final dividend of $1.88 also came in ahead of expectations.

Net interest margin of 2.19% was up from 2.13% in the FY10, with the group improving its funding mix.

CBA warned that credit growth was likely to remain slow over the next few months and that funding costs could rise due to the recent market turmoil.

The bleak outlook didn’t have a negative impact on CBA shares, which have opened solidly higher.

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Blue Chip Shares News UGL Limited (UGL)|ASX UGL StocksUGL Limited (ASX:UGL) is an engineering and services company providing industrial maintenance, manufacturing, engineering, transport facilities management and corporate real estate services to blue chip companies and governments across the world.

The company has grown aggressively over the past decade via acquisitions and expansion in the engineering and industrial services sectors.

Owing to its diversification into the rail, infrastructure, resources and services sectors, UGL has continued to win major projects across the board.

Contracts picking up

UGL has agreed to new works and contract extensions worth a combined $400 million.

The company’s contracts include new long term maintenance agreements with heavyweights such as BHP Billiton (ASX:BHP) and Coal Allied (ASX:CNA).

Similar contracts have also been concluded for alumina and fuel refineries.

UGL said it continues to experience positive trading conditions across its resources business.

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Woodside Petroleum (WPL) Shares | Blue Chip Shares NewsWoodside Petroleum is Australia’s leading oil and gas exploration company, and is 24% owned by global energy giant Shell Australia.

The company sells natual gas, liquefied natural gas (LNG), crude oil, condensate and liquid petroleum gas (LPG) globally. WPL is considered one the markets blue chip shares.

WPL produces the equivalent of around 65 million barrels of oil a year, much of it from the lucrative North-West Shelf area off the WA coast – the largest LNG field in the country.

The company has significant growth prospects through its Pluto, Browse and Sunrise projects.

Last week Woodside provided an update on its Pluto project, revealing a delay and cost blowout at Pluto.

The shock six-month delay and additional $900 million cost overrun to $14.9 billion for the project saw WPL get smashed.

This pushes gas shipments to Japan from September this year to March 2012.

WPL says the delay has been caused by seven weeks of bad weather and slower than expected progress on the commissioning of the onshore LNG plant.

WPL shares finished Friday’s session down 3.8%.

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News Corp (NWS) | Blue Chip Shares | ASX Blue ChipNews Corp (NWS) is a diversified media conglomerate with interests all over the world and in most facets of media.

NWS thus has a wide range of household name services and assets under its belt, including Fox Filmed Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Television, Fox Sports, book publisher Harper Collins, the New York Post in the US, web services Photobucket and MySpace, and Dow Jones.

The group is also considered a blue chip stock among global investors and is one of the biggest companies in the Australian share market.

Last week, NWS advised that third quarter net profit fell 24% from a year earlier to $639 million.  The profit result missed analyst estimates.

The result came on the back of a 6% decrease in revenue, which NWSattributed to weakness in its filmed entertainment and publishing divisions.

However, the cable division was a bright spot, with operating earnings rising 25% on-year amid stronger advertising revenue.

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