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New York — Record quarterly earnings at ExxonMobil drove shares in the oil giant race higher on Monday but gains in the wider market were limited as investors chose to adopt a cautious stance ahead of the Federal Reserve’s meeting on rate policy on Tuesday.
By mid-day, the Dow Jones Industrial was almost unchanged at 10,906 while the S&P 500 was up 0.1 per cent at 1,284.63. The Nasdaq Composite edged up 0.2 per cent at 2,308.03.
Oil and energy stocks were among the session’s best performers, with ExxonMobil trading 3.2 per cent higher at $63.27 after it reported a 23 per cent jump in underlying profit in the fourth-quarter.
High oil and gas prices helped push the Dow component’s fourth-quarter net income to $10.71bn, or $1.71 a share, from $8.42bn, or $1.30 a share, earned a year ago.
The results lifted shares in other energy stocks. Halliburton jumped 3.1 per cent to $81.39 while Marathon Oil gained 2.4 per cent to $76.82. Overall, the Amex oil index rose 2.1 per cent.
By contrast, pharmaceutical stocks sank in early trade after Schering-Plough, the maker of Claritin and Clarinex allergy drugs, reported lower-than-expected quarterly profits.
Its shares fell 1.7 per cent to $19.73, while shares in fellow drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline slipped 1.9 per cent to $51.19.
Eastman Kodak and Tyson Foods also reported disappointing fourth-quarter figures.
Kodak, the world’s largest photography company, lost 2.8 per cent to $25.63 after it reported its fifth-straight quarterly loss. Its fourth-quarter net loss was $52m, or 18 cents a share, down from a loss of $59m, or 20 cents a share, a year ago.
Sentiment was further dented after the group, which is undergoing a bumpy transition towards becoming a digital imaging company, said it expected revenue to decline this year by 2 to 4 per cent.
Tyson Foods, the world’s largest meat processor, plunged 8.4 per cent to $14.08 after it reported a drop in first-quarter profit and forecast a second-quarter loss. The group said it has been hurt by weak pork and beef sales.
Investors were more forgiving with toymaker Mattel, which reported a slight profit decline but the performance was better than expected. Additionally boosted by news of a $250m share buyback, shares in the Barbie doll maker rose 7.9 per cent higher to $15.94.
In other earning news, Wal-Mart added 1.9 per cent to $46.73 after it reported January sales were expected to rise 4.7 per cent, towards the high end of its previous gudiance and much faster than recent trends.
Meanwhile, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts climbed after Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia agreed to buy the Canadian luxury hotelier for $3.9bn or $45 a share, thwarting an a rival bid from corporate raider Carl Icahn. Shares in Fairmont rose 1.1 per cent to $44.29.
source: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/74d16116-9198-11da-bab9-0000779e2340.html 30jan2006
LONDON - Not even a month has passed since Rex Tillerson took up the helm of Exxon Mobil, and the legacy of his predecessor Lee Raymond is still larger than life.
And what a legacy: Exxon's 2005 profit of $36.13 billion has put it the record books. It's the largest annual net income ever recorded by a U.S. corporation. The $10.71 billion that Exxon garnered in its fourth quarter exceeded the Wall Street's hopes and nudged its shares up nearly 4% on morning trading.
Some more mindboggling figures: Quarterly revenue ballooned to $99.66 billion, just shy of the $100.72 billion Exxon posted in the third quarter. That was another record as the first time a U.S. public company generated more than $100 billion in sales in a single quarter.
Unhelpfully, hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which battered the Gulf Coast in August and September, served to dent production by 1%. But by taking out refinery capacity, the storms pushed up oil and gasoline prices, and with them, Exxon's profit. And the global thirst for oil and gas shows little sign of waning, with China and India looking to increase their already soaring demand.
You might duly expect Exxon's (NYSE: XOM - news - people ) new CEO to ride this wave of success, but some observers believe it's hardly that straightforward: Sky-high profits have already sparked calls from consumer groups and politicians for new taxes to be slapped on to oil companies (See "Hands Off The Windfall"). And let's put things in perspective: If Exxon had had the 18% net profit margin of the pharmaceuticals industry, last year's earnings would have been $66.8 billion.
Exxon Mobil Corp. posted record profits for any U.S. company on Monday - $10.71 billion for the fourth quarter and $36.13 billion for the year - as the world's biggest publicly traded oil company benefited from high oil and gas prices and demand for refined products. The results exceeded Wall Street expectations and Exxon shares rose nearly 3 percent on premarket trading.
The company's earnings amounted to $1.71 per share for the October-December quarter, up from $8.42 billion, or $1.30 per share, in the year ago quarter. The result topped the then-record quarterly profit of $9.92 billion Exxon posted in the third quarter of 2005.
Exxon's profit for the year was also the largest annual reported net income in U.S. history, according to Howard Silverblatt, a stock market analyst for Standard & Poor's. He said the previous high was Exxon's $25.3 billion profit in 2004.
The results for the latest quarter included a $390 million gain related to a litigation settlement. Excluding special items, earnings were $10.32 billion, or $1.65 per share. The result topped Wall Street's expectations. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial predicted earnings of $1.44 per share.
Exxon shares rose $1.79, or 2.9 percent, to $63.08 in premarket activity.
Quarterly revenue ballooned to $99.66 billion from $83.37 billion a year ago but came in shy of the $100.72 billion Exxon posted in the third quarter, which was the first time a U.S. public company generated more than $100 billion in sales in a single quarter.
By segment, exploration and production earnings rose sharply to $7.04 billion, up $2.15 billion from the 2004 quarter, reflecting higher crude oil and natural gas prices. Production decreased by 1 percent due to the lingering effects of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which battered the Gulf Coast in August and September.
The company's refining and marketing segment reported $2.39 billion in earnings, as higher refining and marketing margins helped offset the residual effects of the hurricanes.
Exxon's chemicals business saw earnings, excluding special items, decline by $413 million to $835 million, as higher materials costs squeezed margins.
For the full year, net income surged to $5.71 per share from $3.89 per share in 2004. Annual revenue grew to $371 billion from $298.04 billion.
source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/business/30cnd-exxon.html?ei=5094&en=ed7ac90463244e93&hp=&ex=1138683600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print 30jan2006
DALLAS - Exxon Mobil Corp. posted record profits for any U.S. company on Monday $10.71 billion for the fourth quarter and $36.13 billion for the year as the world's biggest publicly traded oil company benefited from high oil and gas prices and demand for refined products. The results exceeded Wall Street expectations and Exxon shares rose nearly 3 percent in morning trading.
The company's earnings amounted to $1.71 per share for the October-December quarter, up 27 percent from $8.42 billion, or $1.30 per share, in the year ago quarter. The result topped the then-record quarterly profit of $9.92 billion Exxon posted in the third quarter of 2005.
Exxon's profit for the year was also the largest annual reported net income in U.S. history, according to Howard Silverblatt, a stock market analyst for Standard & Poor's. He said the previous high was Exxon's $25.3 billion profit in 2004.
Exxon's results lifted the combined 2005 profits for the country's three largest integrated oil companies to more than $63 billion.
ConocoPhillips said last Wednesday that its fourth-quarter earnings rose 51 percent to $3.68 billion, while annual income climbed 66 percent to $13.53 billion. Two days later, Chevron Corp. said its fourth-quarter earnings rose 20 percent to $4.14 billion, while annual income jumped 6 percent to $14.1 billion.
The oil industry's stellar results renewed talk among some politicians for a windfall profit tax that would push companies to invest more in new production and refining capacity.
Sen. Babara Boxer, a California Democrat who sharply criticized oil executives appearing before Congress in November, struck again on Friday. She called on the Bush Administration and the Federal Trade Commission to "put an end to gouging," then suggested that FTC stood for "Friend to Chevron."
But John Felmy, chief economist for the American Petroleum Institute, a Washington-based trade group, said Monday that the political rhetoric was "not a case based on fact."
"We invested somewhere in the order of $86 billion last year," Felmy said. "Then we have to treat investors appropriately otherwise we'd have the Eliott Spitzers of the world coming after us."
The results for Exxon's latest quarter included a $390 million gain related to a litigation settlement. Excluding special items, earnings were $10.32 billion, or $1.65 per share. The result topped Wall Street's expectations. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial predicted earnings of $1.44 per share.
Exxon shares rose $1.87 to $63.16 in morning trade on the New York Stock Exchange.
Quarterly revenue ballooned to $99.66 billion from $83.37 billion a year ago but came in shy of the $100.72 billion Exxon posted in the third quarter, which was the first time a U.S. public company generated more than $100 billion in sales in a single quarter.
By segment, exploration and production earnings rose sharply to $7.04 billion, up $2.15 billion from the 2004 quarter, reflecting higher crude oil and natural gas prices. Production decreased by 1 percent due to the lingering effects of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which battered the Gulf Coast in August and September.
The company's refining and marketing segment reported $2.39 billion in earnings, as higher refining and marketing margins helped offset the residual effects of the hurricanes.
Exxon's chemicals business saw earnings, excluding special items, decline by $413 million to $835 million, as higher materials costs squeezed margins.
For the full year, net income surged to $5.71 per share from $3.89 per share in 2004. Annual revenue grew to $371 billion from $298.04 billion.
To put that into perspective, Exxon's revenue for the year exceeded Saudi Arabia's estimated 2005 gross domestic product of $340.5 billion, according to statistics maintained by the Central Intelligence Agency.
source: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/print?id=1557188 30jan2006
Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's biggest publicly traded oil company, racked up yet another record profit, saying its fourth-quarter earnings surpassed $10 billion, a result likely to intensify political heat on the energy industry.
Amid high oil, gasoline and natural-gas prices, Exxon said its quarterly net income surged to $10.7 billion, 27% higher than the year-ago period and 8% above Exxon's third-quarter take, which itself was a company record. Fourth-quarter revenue was $99.67 billion, up 19.5% from a year earlier.
In midday trading on the New York Stock Exchange, shares of Exxon Mobil were up $2.13, or 3.5%, to $63.42.
The Exxon result amounted to a profit of $80,842.39 per minute during the quarter. It was one of the biggest quarterly profits of any company in history. Though a handful of other companies have posted higher quarterly profits, those were largely through accounting adjustments, while Exxon's result came mainly from operations.
Exxon's result surpassed even the predictions of a Wall Street that has grown to expect boom times in the oil patch. Excluding a special gain of $390 million related to a lawsuit, the company's earnings amounted to $1.65 per share, significantly higher than the $1.44 predicted by analysts, according to Thomson Financial.
The biggest driver of Exxon's surging profit was high energy prices. They shot the company's "upstream" earnings – income from producing and selling crude oil – up 44% from the year-earlier period. Exxon's "downstream" earnings – what the company makes from refining crude oil into finished products like gasoline and heating oil and then selling those products – rose just 2% from the year-earlier quarter. Higher prices for those products were "partly offset" by lower production volumes following last fall's hurricanes, which temporarily shut down a big chunk of the U.S. refining infrastructure, the company said.
Exxon is just the latest major energy company to report roaring fourth-quarter results due to high energy prices. In the last week, Chevron Corp. reported a 20% gain in fourth-quarter earnings, ConocoPhillips posted a 51% jump, and Marathon Oil Corp. announced a near tripling. Other oil companies are expected to report blockbuster quarterly results in the coming days.
Exxon's profit soared even though the company produced less fossil fuel. Total oil-equivalent production in the fourth quarter fell 1% from the year-earlier period, the company said. Oil production rose 2.5%, as increased output from West Africa, Azerbaijan and the North Sea offset declines from mature fields, continuing below-normal production in the Gulf of Mexico as a result of the hurricanes, and other factors. Natural-gas production fell 5.8%.
As happened a quarter ago, Exxon's record take is likely to ratchet up calls in Washington for a crackdown on energy-industry profits. Tuesday, President Bush is to deliver his State of the Union address to a nation angry over high energy costs. On Sunday, the average U.S. price of regular unleaded gasoline averaged $2.34 per gallon. While that price is down from the peak immediately after last year's hurricanes, it's still up 23.8% from a year ago and up 6.6% from a month ago, according to AAA, the motoring club.
The Senate has passed two provisions that would effectively raise the tax bills primarily of five major oil companies: Exxon, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP PLC and Royal Dutch Shell PLC. One would reduce the companies' ability to trim their tax bills through an inventory-accounting method known as "last-in, first-out," which ties the cost of goods sold to the cost of the most-recent purchases. The other would bar the oil companies from continuing to claim credits against their U.S. tax bills for the taxes they pay in certain oil-rich countries where they operate.
Officials at Exxon and other big oil companies say they regard the two remaining provisions are a serious threat. Some industry analysts say they doubt the measures will pass the House.
Exxon has been taking pains to try to preempt such a political backlash. The company noted in announcing its fourth-quarter results that it's boosting spending on hunting for and producing new stores of oil and natural gas. Capital and exploration spending in the quarter was $5.3 billion, up 26% from the year-earlier period, a sizeable rise by industry standards.
"There is a great deal of public interest in global energy prices," Rex Tillerson, Exxon's chairman and chief executive, said in a statement. He added: "Our strong financial results will continue to allow us to make significant, long-term investments required to do our part in meeting the world's energy needs."
Exxon Mobil Corporation said today that its 2005 earnings totaled $36.13 billion, an increase of 42 percent from the previous year. The amount is the largest annual profit ever for an American company.
The earnings come at a time of high gasoline and heating fuel prices that have prompted some political leaders to call for a windfall profits tax on oil companies. But the company said it was reinvesting in exploration and refining capacity to meet the world's need for energy.
"Our strong financial results will continue to allow us to make significant, long-term investments required to do our part in meeting the world's energy needs," the company's chairman, Rex W. Tillerson, said in a statement accompanying the earnings report.
Earnings for the final quarter of the year were $10.71 billion, or $1.71 a share, up 27 percent from the $8.42 billion, or $1.30 a share, in the final quarter of 2004.
The fourth-quarter performance capped a record year for oil companies driven by a surge in crude oil and gas prices. Crude oil prices rose 40 percent last year, driven by rapidly rising demand from economically rising countries like China and India and production problems in oil-producing countries like Nigeria and Iraq.
Total revenues for the quarter reached $99.66 billion from $83.37 in the year-ago period.
Exxon Mobil reported that oil and gas production declined by 1 percent in the fourth quarter. However, the company said that if the lingering effects of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which crimped production in the Gulf of Mexico and on the Gulf Coast, and other factors are included, production rose 2 percent.
Gas production declined in the fourth quarter to 9.822 billion cubic feet per day from 10.43 billion in the comparable period last year. New gas supplies, the company said, were more than offset by declines in output from older fields, lower demand in Europe and the lingering effects of hurricanes on operations on the Gulf Coast.
Earnings from the sales of chemical products were down $413 million to $835 million, the company said, due mostly to the higher cost of raw materials and hurricane damage.
For the year, the company said, its exploration and capital expenses were $177 billion, an increase of $2.8 billion over the 2004 total. Earnings excluding special, one-time events totaled $33.86 billion, an increase of 31 percent, with all segments of the business contributing to the performance, the company said.
Exxon Mobil stock was up 3.43 percent, to $63.39 a share, in early afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/business/30cnd-exxon.html?ei=5094&en=ed7ac90463244e93&hp=&ex=1138683600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print 30jan2006
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