27/10/2017 World Business Report

Now it's time for

World Business Report.

Online retailer Amazon leads

a barrage of tech earnings.

Its sales were up 34%

in July to September,

compared to the same

period last year.

And it's "bye, bye, bye!"

to floor trading on the Hong

Kong Stock Exchange.

After more than 30 years,

it's going fully electronic.

Welcome to World Business Report.

I'm Ben Bland.

In a few moments will be live on the

floor of the Hong Kong stock

exchange for one last glimpse before

it closes.

Thursday was a huge day

for technology company results.

Four of the big global tech giants

reported their latest earnings.

Alphabet, Google's parent company,

Microsoft and Twitter

all posted their key numbers.

But let's start with

a look at Amazon.

The retailer reported revenues

of almost $44 billion in the three

months between July and September -

that's a jump of 34% over the same

period last year.

But profits were virtually

unchanged since last year -

that's because this is often

the quarter when Amazon chooses

to pile a bunch of money

into its own projects like tech

gadgets, streaming

video, and warehouses.

The company has operated on this

model for years and it seems to have

served it well.

In fact, analysts now estimate that

Amazon will command about 43.5%

of all commercial online sales this

year - that's nearly half

of all the stuff sold online.

Dave Lee sums up the day's

action from San Francisco.

Amazon's investors don't really mind

how much profit it makes, as long as

the company keeps on growing.

August's acquisition of grocery

chain wholefood helped Amazon on its

way to a massive quarter. Its sales

are up 34% on this time last year.

Amazon's chief executive Jeff Bezos

says investment in new areas like

its popular Alex assistant would

reap dividends in the near future if

the profit right away. -- Alexa.

Alphabet saw its share price rise

after beating analyst expectations

thanks to more people clicking on

its advertising. But alphabet is

spending more and more on traffic

acquisition. But the amount it has

to be addressed in order to get its

advertising platform in front of

internet users. That's why it is

trying hard to make money in

different ways.

It's hard to

complain about depending on a

revenue source that is profitable

but if you care about

diversification it is still very

heavily weighted towards research

and could be an issue towards the

company in the long-term if someone

must invest heavily in the space.

This batch of tech earnings also saw

some surprisingly good news for

Twitter.

They beat every revenue,

they beat monthly active users or

how often people use it each month

or how many and they also grew a lot

in their daily active user counter,

where people show up each day so if

you're an investor looking at the

long-term health of the company they

need to have more users to grow more

revenue and both in this quarter

grew and it was a long time coming

at all street was happy.

A company

predicted it made for the first time

in its history soon be able to turn

a profit. Dave Lee, BBC News, San

Francisco.

Think of a stock exchange and it

conjures up images of a busy

trading floor full of screens,

desks and hundreds of traders.

But not for much

longer in Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong stock exchange

will close its trading floor

after 31 years on Friday.

In its heyday, the floor was home to

more than a thousand stockbrokers.

But the rise of electronic

and internet trading has changed

the industry permanently.

Joining us from the floor

of the Hong Kong exchange

is Juliana Liu.

Good to see you. What have they

decided to do this now then? -- why?

Well, exactly as you say, the rise

of electronic and internet trading.

Neither of which existed when the

floor first started all the way back

in 1986. In those heydays of the

exchange floor, it was when you had

hundreds and more than 1000 floor

traders running around shouting

their orders. This place was

extremely noisy in those days but it

really started to change around the

year 2000 when brokerages began to

move their floor trading operations

out of disk space and into their

offices because they could have

everyone together and hire as many

traders as they wanted, as many

monitors as they wanted, so that's

when things really started to

change. In 2000, physically floor

trading contributed to 20% of the

turnover and in the last few years

it has been really negligible. The

officials at the exchange haven't

said explicitly why they are closing

their floor but essentially, it's no

longer as relevant as it used be.

And how nostalgic are people about

their floor close and then? --

closing?

Look, it's a bittersweet

day, not just for the traders but

for us also, for the media. It is

also our last day he at the

exchange. There were only two

traders who turned up for work much

to the news that this flawed

close-up announced a few months ago

and in the last few weeks traders

have been heavily moving out today,

a worker said he was so sad he was

losing his second home and that he

was spending more time here that he

did at his own home. A lot of

sadness here at the exchange today.

True? The world is changing,

financial technology is developing,

we should get with the times, even

if we don't want to go.

TRANSLATION:

I started as a broker after

finishing school. It has been over

40 years. There used to be for

exchanges. Then they combined to

become one exchange in 1986. Then we

moved into this office.

TRANSLATION:

we have a deep affinity for this

place. We worked together, side by

side, chatting all day.

TRANSLATION:

at the time electronic trading

systems wasn't as developed as it is

now. So all transactions had to go

through a centralised system. There

were thousands of people here.

Printers were running all the time.

If there was noisy and busy. -- the

atmosphere. We started out as just a

small regional stock exchange but

then Hong Kong became an

international financial centre. I

think stockbrokers working here

would the lot, we have gone through

countless financial crises. And we

persevered. Stockbrokers made great

contributions. This is something we

are very proud of.

There you go, one

last point before they turned the

lights off there.

In other news:

Royal Bank of Scotland has settled

a US criminal investigation that

accused its traders of lying

to clients over investments

between 2008 and 2013.

The US Department of Justice said

RBS will pay $44 million under

the non-prosecution agreement.

RBS said it self-reported the issue

to the US authorities

and was pleased the matter

was now resolved.

Toymaker Mattel is suspending

its quarterly dividend after it

suffered a hit from the bankruptcy

of its largest retailer Toys'R'Us.

Mattel's shares tumbled 16% to $13

after the company said it suffered

a loss of more than $600 million

in the three months that

ended in September.

The California-based company

was also hurt by weak demand

of its core products like Barbie,

Hot Wheels, Thomas & Friends,

and Monster High.

Strong pick-up truck and SUV

sales in the US boosted

Ford's bottom line.

The car maker saw profits jump 60%

compared to the same quarter last

year when it faced a recall.

However, it still faces

an uphill battle in China.

The company said it sold over

830,000 cars and trucks

on the mainland in the first nine

months of the year -

that's down 5% compared

to the same period in 2016.

Looking at the all ordinaries in

Sydney, it is down a shade their,

responding to the decision which the

court said means the Deputy Prime

Minister has to seek re-election

because of the citizenship row and

it means the government has lost its

wafer thin majority so that's why

the all ordinaries are responding to

it like that. You can see the

NASDAQ, the Dow, the big tech

earnings from the big companies, we

will be looking at that later so

stay with us for that. Goodbye.