Expect more congressional hearings regarding "windfall profits"...
HOUSTON - Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest publicly traded oil company, reported income Thursday that shattered its own record for the biggest profit from operations by a U.S. corporation, earning $14.83 billion in the third quarter.
Bolstered by this summer's record crude prices, the Irving, Texas-based company said net income jumped nearly 58 percent to $2.86 a share in the July-September period. That compares with $9.41 billion, or $1.70 a share, a year ago.
The previous record for U.S. corporate profit was set in the last quarter, when Exxon Mobil earned $11.68 billion.
Revenue rose 35 percent to $137.7 billion.
On average, analysts expected the company to earn $2.39 per share in the latest quarter on revenue of $131.4 billion.
Exxon Mobil's results got a boost of $1.62 billion in the most-recent quarter from the sale of a natural gas transportation business in Germany. It also took a special, after-tax charge of $170 million related to a punitive damages award related to the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Excluding those items, third-quarter earnings amounted to $13.38 billion _ nearly 15 percent above its previous profit record from the second quarter.
As expected, Exxon Mobil posted massive earnings at its exploration and production, or upstream, arm, where net income rose 48 percent to $9.35 billion. Higher oil and natural gas prices propelled results, even though production was down from the third quarter a year ago.
Oil producers are coming off a quarter during which crude prices reached an all-time high of $147.27 _ and their profits have reflected it. Crude prices, however, have quickly fallen 50 percent from the summer's highs, and the global economic malaise has raised questions about energy demand at least into 2009.
Some companies, especially smaller producers, are scaling back spending on new exploration and production projects because of the uncertainty, though analysts say that its less likely to happen at the well-heeled giants like Exxon Mobil.
Company shares rose 96 cents to $75.61 in premarket trading.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
... the profit being measured in dollars, which are less valuable today than before.
Pro Christo et Libertate integre!
Here we go again? Same place as before: Nowhere!!!!
Looking at other companies we do not see anything that jumps out. Most healthy companies make a much higher profit margins than Exxon.
Operating Margin Profit Margin Revenue
Exxon: 1.4/131= 11.3 11.3 131x4=524est but will be less oil prices lower
Walmart 5.8 3.4 397bill
Dow 5.6% 4.3% 61
Proctor and Gamble 20.6 14.5 83
Bank of America 20.7 12.7 47
Microsoft 54 23 62
Ok so Exxon is less than Proctor and Gamble and Bank of America and a lot less than Microsoft and better than Energy Dependent Dow and a retailer. Considering that this revenue and profit was EARNED in an oil boom we really do not see anything that fantastic from Exxon.
Exxon is a great example of the supremacy of market order over government order. The market has dropped the value of Exxon recently while Exxon has earned huge profits. Why??? Because markets unlike governments look at future earnings and profits and clearly the market believes that Exxon can not sustain their profits.
So
So next
So next time
So next time I
So next time I advise
So next time I advise you
Sorry about the repeats, I did not do it on purpose.
The oil industry is always a special case of a commodity whose price fluctuates very irregularly, and future investments demand enormous amounts of money and connections to all sorts of foreign government. Today's results for an oil company cannot be extrapolated for tomorrow as easily as can be done for other industries.
Art transcends ideology.
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/ruben
Rubén: The oil industry is always a special case of a commodity whose price fluctuates very irregularly, and future investments demand enormous amounts of money and connections to all sorts of foreign government. Today's results for an oil company cannot be extrapolated for tomorrow as easily as can be done for other industries.
This is great. This hedging of bets has allowed the price of oil to stay in a smaller band, assuming that intervention of the markets is avoided. There is a great article in the Freeman this month that explains juft that...if anyone is interested I can find a link.
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