During August, we will not be providing the 'Markets Afternoon' report due to holiday and site development work. Use the relevant links below for the latest data.

On Thursday, Hewlett-Packard (HP) reported an 11% rise in revenue and a 6% profit increase for its fiscal third quarter, which ended July 31st. The technology giant, which in the world's No. 1 PC maker, has been in the news following the firing of its CEO, Mark Hurd, two weeks ago, also raised its full-year outlook. Rival Dell, the world's No. 3 PC maker, also reported results Thursday and said profit rose 15% in its fiscal second quarter as the company confirmed hat business from its corporate and public sector customers is improving.

HP said Thursday that its quarterly results were driven by growth across its product portfolio  -- including PCs, servers, services and printers. Earnings were $1.77bn, or 75 cents a share, up from $1.67bn, or 69 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue was $30.7bn, up from $27.6bn.

"The broad-based strength of HP's Q3 performance further demonstrates the power of our strategy and the discipline of our execution," said Cathie Lesjak, HP chief financial officer and interim chief executive officer. "We raised our full-year outlook and are continuing to build momentum in driving out costs, investing for profitable growth and capitalizing on HP's competitive advantages in the marketplace."

Dell reported a profit for the quarter ended July 30 of $545m, or 28 cents a share, up from $472m, or 24 cents a share, in the same period last year. Excluding severance-related charges and other items, earnings rose to 32 cents a share from 29 cents. Revenue rose 22% to $15.53bn.

Euro: Bloomberg reports that the euro is so important to Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, one of the common currency’s founding fathers, that he’s willing to work for free to safeguard its future.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou this month asked Padoa-Schioppa, whose previous roles include Italian finance minister, central banker, economist and international banking supervisor, to advise the country on its debt management.

The Fed and other central banks will be forced to introduce a second round of quantitative easing in a bid to boost the economy, Steen Jakobsen Group from Limus Capital Partners told CNBC Friday. "We inch closer to the QE2, whether that becomes the Titanic will be a discussion," Jakobsen said:

Irish car licence and rental price figures broadly positive, while US and UK data paint a mixed picture: Davy's Aidan Corcoran comments  - -"Data released by the CSO yesterday (August 19th) show that 7,018 new private cars were licensed in July 2010, an increase of 61% over the July 2009 figure of 4,355. The increase suggests that consumers are regaining some appetite, but the exceptionally low level of the July 2009 figure exaggerates the change.

The average asking rent for Q2 2010 was 0.9% lower than in the previous quarter, according to the Daft.ie rental report, published yesterday. This represents the lowest quarterly rate of decline since Q2 2008. The data provide a valuable snapshot of trends in the rental market, but inferring actual rents and rental yields from the advertised asking prices risks giving a false picture. The higher number of transactions and consequent fall in the stock of properties available to rent does suggest that prices are coming closer to finding a floor, although significant regional disparities persist.

International news yesterday reinforced the picture of diverging recovery scenarios across the major economic powers.

US data were unequivocally negative. Jobless claims again disappointed, with the figure for the week ended August 14th climbing by 12,000 to 500,000 claims. The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s general economic index, a gauge of sentiment among manufacturers, fell to -7.7 this month. This was the lowest reading since July 2009, down from 5.1 in July, and will heighten fears of a faltering US recovery.

UK retail sales were 1.3% higher in July 2010 than July 2009, posting a 1.1% monthly gain. The figure surprised analysts but might be partly explained by some consumers bringing purchases forward in advance of tax hikes. Meanwhile, a sharp rise in corporation tax receipts helped public sector net borrowing to come in below expectations (£3.8bn compared to £6.1bn for July of last year). Any consumer optimism will be kept in check by the spectre of public sector budget cuts soon to be undertaken."

Australians will vote on who will lead the country over the next three years this weekend in what looks set to be a closely fought election. Sean Fenton from Tribeca Investment Partners considers the outlook:

Economic View: Markets in risk-off mode once again; Goodbody chief economist, Dermot O’Leary, comments -- "Yesterday’s data from the US did little to dispel some of the fears around an impending slowdown in the world’s most important economy. Jobless claims rose, the regional Fed survey from Philadelphia fell sharply, while the US leading indicators have virtually been flat for five months now. While banking sector and sovereign issues have dominated for much of the year, markets are now reacting to slowing economic momentum.

The important question is whether this is just a temporary slowdown following the massive stimulus injected in 2009 or the early signs of another recession. The simple (and admittedly coy) answer to this question is that it is still too early to tell. Markets are beginning to price in a slowdown though, with US and core European bond yields (despite upwardly revised GDP growth forecasts in the latter) hitting record lows yet again and Gold approaching all-time highs yet again. In the markets’ view there is an increasing chance that deflation will become a reality and, given the level of unemployment in the developed world, the scale of spare capacity would suggest that downward pressure on prices will indeed remain.

While European policymakers are intent on reducing budget deficits and leaving monetary policy settings where they are, should the incoming data, particularly next month’s employment report, continue to be weak, the calls for further stimulus to aid the recovery are bound to get louder."

Insight on the movie "The Expendables," with Sylvestor Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, Jason Statham and Terry Crews:

US Markets

On Thursday in New York, the Dow Jones fell 144 points or 1.39% to 10,271.

The S&P 500 slid 1.69% and the Nasdaq slipped 1.66%.

US  first-time weekly jobless benefit claims rose to the highest level in 9 months last week.

The US Department of Labor reported Thursday that in the week ending Aug. 14th, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 500,000, an increase of 12,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 488,000. The 4-week moving average was 482,500, an increase of 8,000 from the previous week's revised average of 474,500.

Asia Markets

Asian stocks fell, halting a five- day stretch of gains for the MSCI Asia Pacific Index,

The index dipped 1.3% Friday.

The Nikkei dropped 1.96%; China's Shanghai Composite declined 1.70%; Australia's S&P/ASX 200 Index fell 1.07%  --  in advance of the expected close federal election on Saturday - - and India's Sensex Index lost 0.26%.

Asia benchmarks

In Europe, the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 rose 0.10% Thursday.

The ISEQ has declined 0.32% in Dublin.

CRH is off 1.03%; Elan is up 0.61%; AIB is off 3.18%.

Irish Financials: Bank of Scotland Ireland pulls out of Ireland;Goodbody's Eamonn Hughes comments  -- "A few months ago, Lloyds Bank took the decision to close its retail franchise in Ireland. Given that decision and the turmoil in the financial sector, it was therefore no great surprise to hear that Lloyds has taken a further decision to close the balance of its Irish business, Bank of Scotland (Ireland), which was its business bank. Staff are to move to a new company which will manage the loans, but the decision removes another competitor from the market and will dampen credit availability in the SME sector in the coming quarters, though ISME estimates its share at around 5%.

Our normalised earnings for the main domestic banks show profits are likely to be no more than 60% of the previous peak and with margins likely to be higher then (2014) than the previous peak in 2007, this implies the revenue pool is smaller again. So capacity in the domestic banking market had to be dramatically reduced and yesterday’s announcement just represents (notwithstanding the likely hardship for staff) a further move in this process. Over the longer term, this is good news for remaining players on the margin front, though we estimate it will still take until 2014 before the two main banks get to normalised ROEs of 13-14% notwithstanding asset spread gains due to pressures on the liability side (combined with anaemic asset volumes of new business).

Elsewhere, we note Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan’s, comments that “we want to see the banks off the guarantee as soon as possible…what we are talking about here is the phasing out of the guarantee over time”. This should be no surprise to most investors in the banks and it would be our view that the guarantee will need to be extended from the year end deadline until further out. Remember, the Central Bank governor earlier this week indicated that the hope would be that it is over quarters rather than years. The Minister added that discussions were under way with the EU Commission about extending some of the September deadlines. Presently, the updated guarantee plan (ELG) offers move limited cover out to December, but the media reports that the Department of Finance has some concerns about the end of the existing guarantee on both inter-bank deposits and short term corporate deposits (as we do ourselves!). It would be helpful (though at a full cost no doubt) if such funding metrics were extended to year end (as a starter), but we await any further details."