Fat Fourth

How fast are earnings picking up to match the recovery? From U.S. business last week came fourth-quarter reports that showed profits rising fast enough in many cases to offset the previous slowdown and turn 1958 into a fine year. After limping along 33% behind 1957 for the first nine months, Monsanto Chemical Co. reported the best fourth quarter in history, so good that full-year earnings totaled $1.55 per share, only 7.7% behind last year. Philco's fourth quarter nearly doubled last year's rate. Seeburg Corp. announced 54-c- a share in the first quarter of its fiscal 1959 v. only 50-c- for the full twelve months before.

The rise was equally strong in many a company that kept growing despite the recession. Raytheon Manufacturing noted a backlog of $280 million in unfilled orders, reported that a fat fourth quarter pushed 1958 earnings to $3.08 per share and a new record, 95% better than last year. Westinghouse. whose sales declined 5.6% largely because of the slump in appliances, had a better-than-good year: by working hard on a cost-control program, it managed to boost earnings to $4.25 per share v. $4.18 last year.

Some hard-hit industries were naturally taking more time than others to climb back to pre-recession levels. Yet even in oils, still beset by political troubles abroad and price problems at home, the fourth-quarter pickup was strong enough to cause Chairman K. S. Adams of Phillips Petroleum to predict: "If present trends continue, both gross and net income in 1959 will be the highest in the company's history."

Other preliminary earnings (per share):

Fourth Quarter Year

1958 1958 1957

Allied Chemical $1.09 $3.41 $4.37 Stauffer Chemical .74 3.89 3.62

Union Carbide 1.34 4.15 4.45

Stand. Oil (N.J.) .47 2.73 4.08

Stand. Oil of Calif. 1.11 4.08 4.56

Bell & Howell 1.90 4.00 3.92

Johns-Manville .96 3.06 2.48

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.