Grin Wiped Off

Few crops are harvested more than once a year, but one crop is harvested four times a year regularly: Industry's reports of earnings. Last week John Stockholder looked upon the mounting tale of corporate earnings for the third quarter and found them in most cases as good as he had hoped, in some cases better. In the new crop of reports, only utilities were disappointing. On them the tables had been turned: their fixed rates which had held up earnings well into Depression, had reacted against them under the mounting taxes and mounting costs of Recovery.

But John Stockholder could still afford to clap his hands as he saw other companies show deficits reduced, deficits turned into profits, and profits turned into bigger profits for the first nine months of 1933. Even the few companies whose nine-month profits were smaller than a year ago showed growing earnings for the last three months. Some reports to John Stockholder:

9 mos. 1933-9 mos. 1932 000s omitted

d=deficit

General Motors .. .$81,409 $10,555 National Distillers. 1,954 370

Bethlehem Steel. . . 9,365 d 13,782 d

Wrigley 5,949 5,709

duPont ... 26,437 19733

Republic Steel 2,780 d 8,640 d

Jones & Laughlin. . 4,740 d 6,192 d

Texas Gulf Sulphur. 5,025 4,541

Standard Brands. .. 10,416 11,247

Aviation Corp 395 2,875 d

Gillette Safety

Razor 2,686 4,655

Commercial

Solvents 1,279 894

Packard 487 d 4,416 d

American Metal. . . 38 1,412 d

Childs 178 d 183 d

Continental Oil . . . 2,061 d** 101 Consolidated Gas . 52,362* 60,566* Electric Power &

Light 39 d* 6,642*

North American .. 12,930* 18,992*

But though John Stockholder could afford to grin at most of these reports he saw last week another set of reports, not of what business had been like in July, August and September but of what it had fallen to last week:

P:The Iron & Steel Institute (which under its new NRA code had just begun to make official weekly reports on steel operations) slapped John Stockholder square on his grin with the announcement that steel operations were at 26.1% of capacity, not anywhere near the 59% high of the third quarter.

P:The index of automobile production, even allowing for a proportional seasonal decline, dropped to 46 although its average for the last quarter was well on the sunny side of 60. P:Electric power output fell to 1,618,000,000 kilowatt hours compared to 1,663,000,000 last quarter in spite of the fact that a seasonal increase would be normal.

P:Carloadings registered a drop to 650,000--only 8,000 cars above the 1932 level, although in the third quarter they were running 100,000 cars ahead of 1932.

His grin demolished, John Stockholder still waited for better news.

*For 12 months. **This deficit for nine months resulted from early losses: the third quarter Continental Oil had net income of $2,898,000.

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