Toymaker Hasbro shares climbed early Monday after the company reported fourth-quarter results that topped expectations.

With help from licensing revenue and strong sales of action figures, Hasbro said its quarterly profit popped 77% to $165.6 million, or $1.09 per share. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had been looking for 81 cents a share.
The quality of the beat, coupled with what we believe was extreme pessimism heading into today s report, should propel the stock significantly higher, Wedbush analyst Chris White wrote.

The bottom line: Perhaps more impressive than the Q4 performance (and 2009 s full year EPS of $2.48), Hasbro issued guidance for 2010 that calls for further revenue and EPS growth, rendering even our nearly Street-high 2010 estimate of $2.25 (consensus=$2.14) far too conservative, wrote White.

Hasbro didn t give specific guidance, but the company said it expects to raise its top and bottom lines this year.

AIG Down

AIG shares were slightly off early Monday as investors braced for what some expect to be a smaller, fitter company.

The insurance company said Monday that it had hired KeyCorp Vice Chairman Peter Hancock to oversee finance, risk and investments. But investors were reacting to management s streamlining vision laid out in an internal company document obtained by Reuters.

In the note, Chief Executive Robert Benmosche said he envisions a leaner company, with global property-casualty and U.S. life and annuity operations at its core, Reuters reported.

The bottom line: "As we think about AIG for the future, the most important thing is that we are a company that pays back our obligations," he said.

But investors have received some mixed signals. Benmosche has slowed divestments and taken some assets off the block, including an offering of property-casualty unit Chartis, Reuters notes. That s a strategy that seems at odds with a plan to slim down.