Apple, Dow Drive U.S. Fourth-Quarter Profits to 19-Year High

[Harry Hope]

Source: Bloomberg


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-07/apple-dow-drive-u-s-fourth-quarter-profits-to-19-year-high.html

Jan 7, 2011

By Thomas Black

U.S. corporations are set to report their most profitable fourth quarter on record as companies from Apple Inc. to Dow Chemical Co. feed the demand for iPads, caustic soda and capital goods that’s bolstering the economy.

Earnings per share for all Standard & Poor’s 500 Index companies are expected to have risen about 20 percent to $22.05 for the three months ended Dec. 31, according to analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Profits excluding the financial industry may have climbed 12 percent, forecasts indicate.

Investors are more confident that the economic rebound will be sustained and companies will be able to raise prices and control costs, said John Carey, who helps manage about $55 billion of U.S. securities for Pioneer Investment Management in Boston. Manufacturing expanded in December at the fastest pace in seven months, and service industries rose the most since May 2006, according to Institute for Supply Management indexes.

“The momentum of recovery is pretty well in place at this point,” Carey said in a telephone interview.

Technology and industrial companies paved the way for what may have been the strongest year for U.S. profits since 2007 and the best fourth quarter since Bloomberg began keeping the data in 1992. S&P 500 companies have already exceeded the average analyst profit estimate for six straight quarters, the longest streak in Bloomberg data going back to 1993.



Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-07/apple-dow-drive-u-s-fourth-quarter-profits-to-19-year-high.html

[Cutatious]

1. iHope

Maybe some of it will drip down on us to whet our desire to retriple our efforts.