It is earnings season and we have just had the latest results from two household names. One of them is based here in New Zealand. The other is a social media giant.
SkyCity Entertainment announced a six month net profit of $71 million. That is an increase of 30 percent. Revenue increased 14 percent to $566 million.
Tourism is booming in New Zealand and SkyCity is one of the beneficiaries. Its international business, what you and I might call the VIPs or high rollers, saw turnover rise 51 percent to $7.2 billion.
The other big result was Twitter. Its share price fell to new lows after announcing its latest result.
Its active user numbers have dropped by 2 million to 305 million.
That has spooked Wall Street. It is making unfavourable comparisons to Facebook, which now has a user base of 1.6 billion.
Investors are asking how Twitter can turn things around. Its share price has fallen to US$14 from a peak of $70.
