Thursday, April 27, 2006

It averages out Enron

It's a bit strange that Exxon's quarterly profits, announced today, were significantly below analyst expectations:

Net income at Exxon, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, rose to $8.4 billion in the first quarter, compared with $7.86 billion in the year-earlier period. Sales climbed 9 percent to $89 billion. Despite the gains, the company's stock fell as much as 3.3 percent to $61 a share on Thursday morning as the Exxon's earnings fell short of expectations. Exxon's quarterly profit of $1.37 a share, up from $1.15 last year, was 10 cents lower than analysts' expectations, according to an estimate compiled by Thomson Financial.

Similarly,

Instead of $8.4 billion in profits for the first quarter, some analysts had predicted that Exxon Mobil would earn up to $9.27 billion. Total revenues came to $88.98 billion in the first quarter, the company reported, compared to $82.05 billion a year ago.

One assumes that Exxon's accountants report the numbers as they find them, and wouldn't be padding costs or shoving money into reserves just to avoid any political complications.

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