This week in "Duh"

Price Gouging, Wars for Oil: Good for Profits

karlos says: What a surprise.

elmolestoso forwarded this bit of obvious news...

Exxon Posts Record Profits, Sales
By MARK GONGLOFF

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE
October 27, 2005 -- 1:15 p.m. EDT

Exxon Mobil, the world's biggest oil company, reported a jaw-dropping third-quarter profit of $9.92 billion, up 75% from a year ago and a record for a U.S. company, on revenue of $100.72 billion, also a record. If Exxon were a country and revenue were its gross domestic product, its $404 billion in annualized GDP would make it the 18th-most-productive country in the world, with a bigger economy than Switzerland. Its quarterly revenue was more than the latest quarterly revenue of fellow Dow components Alcoa, American Express, Boeing, Caterpillar, DuPont, Walt Disney, Home Depot, Honeywell, Coca-Cola and McDonald's combined. High oil prices helped Exxon, as they helped ConocoPhillips, which reported an 89% jump in profits yesterday, and Royal Dutch/Shell, which reported its highest quarterly profit ever, $9.03 billion, up 68% from a year ago. The sad news for Exxon was that its earnings excluding one-time items fell shy of Wall Street estimates. But its shares didn't fall very far; there was grumbling that the company might have poor-mouthed its earnings in order to avoid a political backlash.

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