CAN EARNINGS STAY ON THE RECOVERY TRACK?

摘要

Everything, they say, is relative. And that certainly applies to third-quarter corporate earnings. At first glance, results for the 900 companies on BusinessWeek's Corporate Scoreboard seem to give investors good reason to pile back into the stock market. Profits were an astounding 57% higher than a year ago. But look again: Much of the gain is due to big, one-time charges taken last year, so the sharp earnings rebound has more to do with cost-cutting and financial cleanup than with big improvements in core businesses. True, corporate revenues were up a hefty 6%. Yet that's mostly because sectors like and technology are much stronger than a year ago, when business all but ground to a halt after September 11.