Late on Monday, MasterCard (NYSE: MA) reported a net loss of $194 million, or $1.49 a share for the third quarter, compared with $314 million, or $2.32 a share, in the same quarter, a year ago. Purchase, New York said that excluding a $515.5 million net after-tax charge related to settlement agreement with Discover Financial Services LLC, it would have earned $322 million or $2.47 a share. Analysts on average were looking for earnings of $2.25 per share excluding one time items. Sales climbed 23.6% to $1.3 billion. President and chief executive Robert W. Selander said in a statement. "As we are not immune from the long-term effects of the current economic environment, we have significantly accelerated the focus on our cost structure, while making sure we remain prudent in allocating resources to those investments that will enable us to drive growth worldwide." Shares of MasterCard soared over 8% in after hours trade.

Media conglomerate Viacom (NYSE: VIA) announced that its third quarter earnings fell 37% to $401 million, or 65 cents a share, compared with $641 million, or 96 cents a share, in the same quarter in 2007. Last year's earnings included a $192 million gain on the sale of the Famous Music publishing company. Revenue rose 4% to $3.41 billion. Consensus expectations were for net income of 56 cents a share and $3.29 billion in revenue. Commenting on the result, Chief Executive Philippe Dauman said "During the third quarter and beyond, Viacom, like every company, had to adjust to the realities of a serious economic downturn. There was a general pullback in spending by marketers as they responded to lower consumer spending." Shares of the company rose 1.5% in extended trading.

Principal Financial Group Inc. (NYSE: PFG) announced that third-quarter net income fell 59% to $98.3 million, from $240.5 million in the same period, a year ago.  Operating earnings, which excludes investment losses and other one-time charges, was $251.2 million, or 96 cents a share compared with $316 million or $1.18 a share in the same period in 2007. Operating revenue fell to $2.75 billion, from $2.94 billion a year ago. Analysts on an average were expecting operating profit of 92 cents a share on revenue of $2.8 billion. Shares of Principal Financial surged over 7% in after-market trading.

World's largest payroll processing company, Automatic Data Processing (NASDAQ: ADP) said that first quarter net earnings declined to $276.9 million, or 54 cents a share, from $297.4 million, or 55 cents a share a year ago. Adjusted earnings climbed to 54 cents a share, from 45 cents a share a year earlier. Sales rose to $2.18 billion from $1.99 billion. Analysts on an average had forecast earnings of 50 cents a share on revenue of $2.13 billion. For fiscal year 2009, the company lowered its total revenue growth estimate to 2% to 3% from an earlier forecast of 7% to 8%.