Chemical Company Earnings Finally End Long Decline

Abstract

At long last, after 15 quarters of no earnings gains, earnings for U.S. chemical companies increased in this year's second quarter. Granted, it was not a universal trend. Of the 30 major chemical companies regularly tracked by C&EN, just 16 showed an increase in second-quarter earnings, compared with last year's second quarter. However, it was enough to yield a combined 8% earnings increase for the group. It is still too early to tell if this is the end of the long slump in the chemical economy. First of all, the improvement was not widespread throughout the industry, and there are still big problems with commodity chemicals, particularly petrochemicals, and with foreign economies. The increase in chemical company earnings was much larger than that of eight diversified companies that also produce chemicals, whose earnings from total operations declined 1% on a 2% sales drop. However, the chemical company earnings gain was not ...