Earnings

No one seriously believed, during the stockmarket's long slide last spring, that Recovery was over. What was feared then was that the combination of strikes, rising labor costs and higher commodity prices would make for slimmer profits. That fear was by no means without foundation but it was exaggerated, as usual, in the stock-market's behavior. Stock prices have regained on the average about two-thirds of all ground lost between March and June. And by last week enough corporations had reported earnings for the first half of 1937 to indicate clearly that Big Business was still profitable.

In certain industries like automobiles there was no doubt that the margin of profit was narrowing. Chrysler Corp., in spite of its five-week strike last spring. sold 629,706 cars and trucks in the first six months of 1937. a record; It took in $409,000,000 compared with $358,000.000 in the same period last year. Yet profits were down from $29.000.000 to $27,000,000. Even in the June quarter when Chrysler had little to charge off to strikes, the company's profit margin showed a sharp drop, from 19.8% in 1930 to 14.7% in 1937. Labor and material might be rising but any company that can retain nearly 15-c- operating profit from each $1 of sales still looked good to Wall Street, and Chrysler stock closed last week at $115 per share, up from the June low of $94.

Figures from the other big labor-troubled industry-- steel-- were not yet in last week but the rest of U. S. business was reporting for the first half such typical earnings as these :

P: After deducting some $2,253,000 as the employes' share of first-half earnings, General Electric Co. reported six-month profits of $26,293,000, compared to $16,592,000 in the same period last year. Sales were up from $119,000,000 to $171,000,000.

P: Texas Corp.'s Captain Torkild Rieber announced that estimated profits for the first half were a thumping $27,000,000 as against $16,000,000 in the first half of 1936.

P: Topping even the 1929 figure, Remington Rand reported the biggest June quarter in the company's history with profits of $1,470,000. In the same three months last year the big office-equipment maker earned $443,000.

P: Riding the air-conditioning boom, Trane Co. (not to be confused with valve-&-bathtub Crane Co.) reported first-half profits before taxes of $227,000, against

$122,000 in the same six months of 1936. C, National Biscuit Co., which has been feeling the pinch of cracker competition. showed a slight gain in the second quarter, though a poor first quarter pulled down earnings for the six months to an indicated ,400,000. For the first half of last year the figure was $6,000,000. C. Helped by modernistic chewing-gum advertising designed by Artist Otis Shepard, William Wrigley Jr. Co. showed profits of $4,354,000 for the first half of 193?-compared to $3,428,000 in the same period of last year.

C. General Time Instruments Corp. (bet! Thomas, Big Ben, Westclox) reported ,000 as against $653,000 in the first half of 1936.

C. Beech-Nut Packing ("Everything Beech-Nut but the Eggs") showed $1,44DEGr ooo for the first half compared to $1,203,-ooo in the same six months of 1936 (both figures before Federal taxes). C, "Sales have continuously risen ^each twelve-month period for four years," de- clared General Foods Corp.'s Colby Chester in announcing half-year profits of 18,000, a slight gain over the same period of last year.

C. John Hay ("Jock") Whitney's Freeport Sulphur Co. showed $1,279,000 for the half, compared to $1,014,000 in the same period a year ago. Not only a sulphur company is Freeport: near Santiago, Cuba it is now producing 10,000 tons of 'manganese per month. After the manganese tariff was halved following the signing of the reciprocal trade pact with Brazil, a big manganese producer, Freeport's Cuban subsidiary languished until prices rose and another $500,000 was invested in new equipment. This year for the first time since 1934 Freeport's Cuban- American Manganese Corp. is out of the

red.

C. Though the budding building boom has been temporarily frosted by soaring prices, Johns-Manville Corp. reported a 44% increase in sales in the first six months with profits up from $1,474,000 to $2,811,000.- C, Sharing the paperboard industry s record business in the first half of 1937. Walter Paul Paepcke's Container Corp. made more money than in any six-month period in the company's history. After the spring peak the paperboard business slumped badly, is currently in the doldrums.

P:Awaiting fine traffic from bumper crops in its territory this autumn, Illinois Central R. R. showed net operating income of $6,841,000 for the first half against $5,942,000 in the same six months last year.

C. Reporting for the twelvemonth through June, big Public Service Corp. of New Jersey showed earnings of $25,377,000 compared to $23,020,000 in the previous fiscal year.

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