Blackberry's surprise profit, Finish Line beats & Dow + Olin ink deal

Shawna Ohm

Here are Friday's trending tickers, the stocks you're following based on your yahoo finance ticker searches.

Here are two words you probably weren't expecting to go together: Blackberry (BBRY) and profitable. The beleaguered smartphone maker unexpectedly posted a profit this morning of 4 cents a share. Net income totaled $28 million, up from a loss of $148 million, or 28 cents per share, a year ago. That news sent the stock up nearly 3% so far in today's trade. It's not all happy talk, though - 1st quarter revenue was down 32% from last year. CEO John Chen said the company has quote "a very good handle on our margins."  Earlier this month Blackberry announced plans to release a super-secure tablet. Keep in mind that 4Q 2014, Blackberry had just .4% of the smartphone market, versus Android's 76.6% (GOOGL) share and Apple's 19.7% (AAPL).

Dow Chemical (DOW), which has been working to shed its lower-margin units, just inked a $5 billion deal to merge its chlorine unit with Olin Corp (OLN). Both stocks are on the move today following the announcement. Dow is up 4%, while Olin is now up more than 20% on the news. The terms of the deal have Dow spinning off its chlorine unit and merging it with Olin, giving Dow shareholders a 50.5% stake in the newly structured company. Olin's current CEO Joseph Rupp will continue at the helm.

And last but not least, Finish Line (FINL) reported a decline in 4th quarter earnings and issued a profit warning for the rest of the year today... still, the company beat Wall Street's expectations, reporting a profit of 87 cents a share on a per-share basis while adjusted earnings came in a penny above that at 88 cents per share. Finish Line also announced a new, 5 million share buyback that will kick off as soon as their current round of buybacks ends. The stock is up about a percent on that news. Finish Line's struggle likely isn't news to anyone following the retail space. It's one of the many retailers to cite "declining mall traffic" and ever-present promotions as a pressure on margins.

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