Market Round-up (UBS, GOOG¸ AAPL, MOT¸ PG, PFE, MRK, LLY, CVS, WAG)

UBS (NYSE: UBS), battered by a US tax evasion probe, is set to reorganize its US wealth management unit. In the shakeup, the company can possibly sell PaineWebber, which a company executive calls a "non-core" business.

Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) has sold only 80,000 Nexus One phones in its first month, as compared to 600,000 Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhones and 525,000 Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Droids sold in their initial months. The possible reasons for the slow uptake of these phones are their availability only on T-Mobile with 3G and only through the web, 3G connection issues and poor customer service.

Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) CEO Bob McDonald is extremely worried about the US and has urged the government to "create greater certainty for business." His biggest short-term concern is that the Obama administration can impose taxes on the foreign earnings of companies and stifle their corporate growth.

Obama's proposal for a new tax on profits earned through patents and other intangible assets located in offshore tax havens took drugmakers by surprise. While Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) says overseas markets accounted for 58% of its revenues in 2008, Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) said it was getting 46%, Merck (NYSE: MRK) 44%, Bristol Myers (NYSE: BMY) 42% from international markets.

Patent protection is about to expire for PFE’s cholesterol drug Lipitor and blood thinner Plavix, both of which are the world's best-selling drugs. The patent expiry can give the opportunity to big pharmacy chains like CVS Caremark (NYSE: CVS) and Walgreen (NYSE: WAG) to earn 20% profit gains in 2011 as generics can be twice as profitable as branded drugs for these pharmacies.