More Earnings

One by one, industry's biggest corporations stepped up last week to report sales and earnings for 1957's second quarter and first half. The results provided more evidence of the nation's economic health. From General Electric's President Ralph J. Cordiner came news of first-half profits of $127.8 million, the highest of any half year in G.E.'s history, a sales gain of 8% to $2.1 billion. International Business Machines' President Thomas J. Watson Jr. announced quarterly earnings of $21.3 million for another alltime peak, and more than the company's total annual revenues 25 years ago. Du Pont, Douglas Aircraft Co., Revlon, Mack Trucks and Schering Corp. were all at new highs, while Kaiser Steel Corp., American Cyanamid Co. and Radio Corp. of America showed solid six-month sales and earnings gains over 1956.

Rare was the company that did not at least increase its sales. And for those whose profits dipped, special conditions were often as much to blame as the inflationary cost squeeze. Union Carbide Corp. laid part of its 2% profit cut (to $34,147,267 for the quarter) to a 15-week strike in some of its oxygen-producing plants. Continental Can Co. said it had anticipated a 5% first-half earnings decline because of stockpile buying in anticipation of a steel strike and the early maturing of some crops. General Foods Corp. suffered a profit slump because of a drop in the price of coffee and frozen foods.

The spate of good earnings reports so far in 1957 has made U.S. businessmen optimistic about the rest of the year. In a survey of 1,432 executives released last week by Dun & Bradstreet, more than 90% foresaw fourth-quarter sales either matching or exceeding last year's, and 89% predicted that net profits in the fourth quarter will also equal or top 1956's last quarter.

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