But the economy contracted by a worse-than-expected 0.3 percent in the last three months of 2012.
Hong Kong's economy contracted by a worse-than-expected 2.8% in the year to the first quarter.
The year-on-year reading showed a worse-than-expected 2.4% drop, underlining fears about the eurozone's economic growth in recent months.
BBC: Eurozone retail sales fall for second consecutive month
Vodafone has warned of "very difficult market conditions in Europe" as it reported a worse-than-expected fall in revenue.
The first signs of a short-term low would likely be when stocks stop declining on worse-than-expected economic news.
During the second quarter, more companies issued better-than-expected figures than worse-than-expected ones, hinting at more good news ahead.
The good news is that the increasing negativity may mute any reaction to a worse-than-expected job report on Friday.
Flowserve had a worse-than-expected second quarter, ended June, and missed consensus estimates of 47 cents per share by a penny.
Japan's Nikkei Stock Average was down 0.6% at 8546.78 after August core machinery orders data fell by a worse-than-expected 3.3% on-month.
HSBC's monthly purchasing managers' index a gauge of business activity fell to a worse-than-expected 50.5 from March's 51.6 on a 100-point scale.
Meanwhile, speaking of weakness in the storage market, storage subsystems provider Xyratex (XRTX) posted worse-than-expected results for its fiscal fourth quarter ended November 30.
FORBES: Volterra Kicks Off Earnings Warning Season; Trouble In Storage?
Europe's biggest economy contracted a worse-than-expected 0.6 percent in the last quarter of 2012 as recession deepened across the 17 European Union countries that use the euro.
The solar products comapny this afternoon warned that due to a variety of factors, including slower-than-expected demand and worse-than-expected pricing pressure, it is running into a cash crunch.
FORBES: Evergreen Solar Warns It May Need Cash Soon; Shares Swoon
According to the Centre for Economic and Business Research (CEBR), the worse-than-expected figures make it unlikely that the Treasury will be able to meet its own economic forecasts.
Although unlikely just yet, this may become one of few options left if Chinese media chatters gain further traction and KFC China sees worse-than-expected same store sales decline.
FORBES: Too-Fast Food: Behind the Scene of YUM! Brand China Slump
Worse-than-expected growth in the U.S. and euro zone or disorderly adjustments in the Chinese housing and credit markets remain the two biggest downside risks to a benign soft-landing at this point.
FORBES: Barclays Reiterates 'No Hard Landing' Call For China
Sony shares sagged Wednesday morning after it announced worse-than-expected losses in its fiscal third quarter and drastically cut its year-end forecast, a day after announcing that Sir Howard Stringer will step down as CEO April 1.
FORBES: Sony Limping Toward The Finish Line Of Stringer's Tenure
Last month, UBS reported a 49% drop in quarterly profit - worse than expected - after business was hit by weaker trading and the high value of the Swiss currency.
To make matters worse, Oracle also issued lighter-than-expected guidance for its fiscal third quarter.
In a research note published Tuesday, Deutsche Bank analyst Mike Mayo also lowered his earnings estimates for Bear in fiscal 2008 and 2009, saying he thinks write-downs are likely to be worse than expected and that fundamentals will weaken somewhat.
The company lost 11 cents a share on a non-GAAP basis, a penny worse than the Street had expected.
But the lackluster revenues from such sporting events' ad purchases illustrate a disturbingly larger trend -- last year's revenue was worse than expected.
Spain has some support for going slow on austerity from the International Monetary Fund, whose chief economist Olivier Blanchard recently warned that the economic pain caused by government spending cuts across the over-indebted industrialised world since 2009 has proved far worse than expected.
The news on Prozac sales now is even worse than Lilly (nyse: LLY - news - people ) expected: "With nearly two months of Prozac sales data available, the erosion in prescriptions is the most severe ever for a blockbuster product in our industry, " Taurel said in a conference call this morning.
If the economic slowdown is worse than expected, these companies could suffer more than their less-leveraged peers.
The Chicago-based online commerce company reported fourth quarter results yesterday that were much worse than Wall Street expected, with the company in the midst of a business model pivot.
The 17-nation eurozone contracted 0.6% in Q4 2012 on a quarterly basis, worse than expected.
According to the Manufacturers' Shipments, Inventories and Orders report, new orders given to U.S. factories fell for the fifth-straight month to 3.9% in December, worse than the 3.0% drop analysts had expected.
Exit polls suggest that a major reason for the much worse than expected performance of the SPD (22%) in its area of dominance during the pre-World War II Weimar Republic is that it proposed a much slower process of reunification while the CDU-led Alliance and the Free Democrats (with 53% of the vote) agreed with Kohl on a rapid process of reunification.
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