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

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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