Business: Profits: Reaching Higher

Corporate profits, following just about everything else (see above), are turning up—and in some cases turning up sharply. Among the standouts last week was P. Lorillard Co. (Kent, Newport, Old Gold). President Lewis Gruber, who took over two years ago and soon started sales soaring, reported third-quarter earnings of $7,478,350 v. $3,076,028 last year. For the first nine months of 1958, Lorillard earned $19,303,199 or $6.46 a share v. $1.82 for the comparable 1957 period.

Campbell Soup Co. stockholders also got good news. In the company year just ended, Campbell for the first time pushed sales over the half-billion mark, earned a record $31,530,460 v. $29,949,148 the year before, Minneapolis-Honeywell (regulators) had the best third-quarter in its history in both sales and earnings. It earned $5,847,624 v. $4,143,615 for the July-September period of 1957. Even where business has been worst, in the railroads, there was good news. Pennsylvania Railroad, operating in the red for most of this year, reported that in September it operated in the black for the second consecutive month. At the same time railroads that had been making money did even better. Northern Pacific reported that the September gross of $18,285,000 was the second best month in its history. But the business pattern was varied. Some companies were on the upswing while others were still looking for the turn.

Other Third-Quarter Earnings 1958 1957 (in millions)

ELECTRONICS

General Electric $58.6 $55.2 Raytheon Mfg. 2.5 1.0 Underwood Corp. .9 (loss) .2 IBM 40.9 22.3 (inclduing non-recurring $14 million capital gain)

CONSTRUCTION Johns-Manville $7.0 $5.7 General Portland Cement 2.5 1.1 Ideal Cement 6.0 5.5 Penn-Dixie Cement 3.4 2.2

CHEMICALS Monsanto $8.0 $8.8 Dow 11.1 14.1 Allied 8.1 10.8

CONCUMER NONDURABLES

Parke Davis $5.2 $6.1 Revlon 4.6 4.3 Colgate-Palmolive 6.4 6.2

STEEL Allegheny Ludlum $1.2 $2.0 Jones & Laughlin 6.7 11.4 Kaiser 1.9 (loss) 3.4

UTILITIES A.T.&T. $189.4 $173.2 AIRLINES American $6.1* $3.6

*Inlcudes approximately $1.1 million owing to 1958 revised depreciation policy.