AOL beats Wall Street's gloomy forecasts

But there's still a dark cloud over the company...

AOL Time Warner has posted third quarter turnover of $9.3bn, beating Wall Street's reduced estimates. For the quarter AOL Time Warner posted $2.5bn, or 30 cents a share, in profit before taxes, interest and depreciation. Before the events of 11 September the company had predicted revenue of $40m and earnings before tax and interest of $11m. However, reduced profits still managed to beat analysts forecasts of 26 cents per share. Including one time charges the company registered a net loss of $996m, up from $902m in the same quarter last year. The charges included $134m merger related expenses and $196m in investment write-downs. Despite the stable results Merrill Lynch analyst Henry Blodgett proceeded to downgrade the company to 'neutral' from 'buy' on fears that the advertising slump has hit AOL's ISP unit.