COMPANIES

International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM), the No. 2 computer maker, has scheduled its first-quarter earnings announcement for after Tuesday’s market close.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a petition from imprisoned former Enron executive Jefffrey Skilling.

Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), the No. 1 chipmaker, is scheduled to report first-quarter results after markets close Tuesday. As always, Intel’s report will be a bellwether for the semiconductor industry.

Closely-held private equity giant The Carlyle Group will be putting a valuing itself somewhere in the vicinity of $7 billion during an upcoming initial public offering, the Wall Street Journal reported late Sunday, a conservative assesment that takes into account some very recent developments in the private equity and IPO worlds.

Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE: XOM) and Rosneft (LON: ROSN) are expected to cement a historic deal on Monday that would allow Exxon access to Russia's Arctic reserves and catapult Rosneft on the global energy stage by granting it entry into North America, reported Reuters, citing sources familiar with the matter.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012 is Tax Day, marking the deadline for filing federal taxes with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). While the day can be stressful, many companies offer free or discounted merchandise on Tax Day, which can subside some of the anger procrastinators can be feeling while squeaking through the deadline. Here is a list of some of the freebies you can snag on Tax Day 2012.

Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) kicked off Monday morning by announcing underwhelming first-quarter earnings that narrowly missed analyst expectations on both profit and revenue. The New York-based banking giant reported earnings of $2.93 billion, or 95 cents per share on revenues of $19.41 billion. Earnings a year ago had been reported as $3 billion, or $1 a share, on revenues of $19.73 billion. Analysts had expected earnings to be flat from year-ago results.

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), the world's second-biggest health care company, is expected to report higher first-quarter profit as strong performance of new drugs offsets drags from generic competition and strings of recalls.

The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO) is expected to report stronger first-quarter profit as the world's largest soft-drink maker tries to offset higher commodity prices by undertaking a new cost-cutting program and continuing to target emerging market growth.

Moody’s Investors Service on Monday downgraded the rating of Finland-based mobile maker Nokia from Baa3 to Baa2, a move in response to the company’s announcement of sharp decline in mobile sales in the first quarter this year.

Citigroup's first-quarter earnings beat Wall Street estimates as expenses fell 7 percent from the 2011 fourth quarter.

Apple's next generation iPhone created a lot of buzz in the last few months. While we have seen some speculation going bizarre, some have more chances to be finally seen in the iPhone 5 (popularly dubbed).

KKR & Co. L.P. (NYSE: KKR), a global private equity company, plans to list precision engineering components manufacturer MMI International on the Singapore Exchange, reported the Dow Jones Newswires, citing three people familiar with the matter, as financial market conditions stabilize on the island nation.

Fortuna Silver Mines (FVI.TSX, NYSE: FSM) said silver production at its Mexico and Peru silver mines more than doubled in the first quarter as it mined higher grade ore from reserves in newly opened production level.

Dole Food Co. issued a recall on 756 cases of bagged salad, which could possibly be contaminated with salmonella, the company said on Saturday. The recall includes bagged Seven Lettuces salads distributed in 15 states.

Shares of Texas Instruments (Nasdaq: TXN) rose nearly 2 percent in early trading after the No. 1 maker of chips for cell phones was selected to join the Nasdaq 100 Index (Nasdaq: NDX).

It's hard to predict whether Apple will consider a significant revamp of its flagship smartphone with the release of the device's upcoming iteration, presumably called the iPhone 5. But expectations of millions of Apple fans around the world are definitely high, waiting for something unique from the company.

It has been reported that Samsung has sent invitations for the first press meet stating that the next Galaxy smartphone will be announced on May 3. Check out the final illustration of the rumored features which include Ceramic Body, 4.65 inch screen with Super AMOLED HD panel with 1280×720-pixel resolution, 5-Column Modified UI, Ice Cream Sandwich OS, TouchWiz 5.0, 12 MP camera, 4G LTE and Wireless Charging.

Instagram, makers of photo sharing apps, was bought by Facebook for $1 billion. Now the company has just announced to cross 40 million users within the first 10 days after the debut of the Android app. But we thought to review other top ten alternative photo sharing apps for your iphone and android phones.

As per the ever-increasing rumor mill, South Korean tech giant Samsung's highly anticipated Galaxy S3 smartphone will get a significant power boost up with a much improved processor. At a time when rumors are rife that a quad-core, Exynos processor would be featured in the next Samsung flagship smartphone, another new Android smartphone has been announced sporting the same.

After suffering their worst two weeks of the year, stocks will look to quarterly earnings to determine whether the recent pullback has been exhausted or more losses are justified.

Rumors about the upcoming Apple iPhone and Samsung Galaxy's next flagship model are all the rage in the mobile space. All the tech-forward consumers are hoping to get their hands on the next-big-thing as soon as it hits store shelves.

Austin Ayers Winther, a former professor at Rider University was sentenced on Friday to more than seven years in prison. Winther, 65, has pleaded guilty in November to “enticing a minor to travel interstate for illegal sex and attempted transfer of obscenity to a minor.”

A new, unsubstantiated, leaked image of what may be the Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphone has surfaced. It depicts an Asian woman posing with two copies of the new phone, suggesting that production is under way.

In the 100 years since the Titanic sinking, how much has actually changed in the cruise ship industry?

On the second day of the Mobile World Congress 2012, held in Barcelona in February, tablet manufacturer Asus unveiled a budget-priced Android tablet -- Asus Transformer Pad 300. When the tech enthusiasts appreciated the official launch of the first 4G LTE tablet by the company, they had no clue about the release date and price tag of the new device.

HTC One X is receiving raving reviews since its launch. While the HTC flagship is being touted as the King among the Android phones, our very favorite Samsung Galaxy S2 is also getting its much-awaited Ice Cream Sandwich update and preparing to give the last fight against the so-called king before the company phases it out with the launch of Galaxy S3.

Verizon Wireless announced Friday that it would expand its 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) network in Southern California in the next few weeks.

At a time when rumors surrounding the release date of Apple's next-gen iPhone are torn between June and October with no official words from Apple yet, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has provided another twist to the tale, saying that it's the FYQ3 forecast that would make clear the prospects for an iPhone 5 introduction.