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UPS earnings trail Wall Street estimates

United Parcel Service Inc reported fourth-quarter earnings below analysts' estimates and set a weaker-than-expected profit forecast for 2013, sending its shares lower. UPS, the world’s largest package-delivery company, said on Thursday that it expected earnings to rise 6% to 12% in 2013, to $4.80 to $5.06 per share, below the average Wall Street forecast of $5.11. The company posted a fourth-quarter net loss of $1.75 billion, or $1.83 per share, after a $3 billion noncash charge for pension accounting. In the year-earlier period, it earned $725 million, or 74 cents per share. Factoring out one-time and noncash items, the profit came to $1.32 per share, below the analysts' average estimate of $1.38, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Revenue rose 2.9% to $14.57 billion from $14.17 billion.

China looks to expedite rural land reforms

China will draw up policies aimed at speeding up the transfer of rural land as part of efforts to improve efficiency and promote large-scale commercial farming, the government said on Thursday. The central government said in its “number one document” for 2013, focusing on modernising agriculture, it would grant more subsidies to large-scale landholders, family farms and rural cooperatives as it tries to provide more incentives to bring economies of scale to the fragmented countryside. The “number one document” is a key indicator of policy priorities and has

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