Corporate Profits, the Dollar and Global Growth

June 01, 2007 By Richard Berner New York (с сайта Morgan Stanley)
US corporate profits are decelerating and profit margins are flattening, courtesy of slower US growth and fading operating leverage. That’s not exactly news to investors. While first-quarter S&P earnings results handily beat expectations, with operating earnings rising 8.2% from a year ago, the results confirmed that the record-breaking era of double-digit earnings growth that began in 2002 is over. Likewise, the just-released “economic” after-tax corporate profits consistent with the national income and product accounts (NIPAs) rose by 6.4% over the same period. And the result is hardly a surprise; analysts like me have been expecting the slowdown for more than a year, and I expect the slower earnings pace to continue (see for example, “Corporate Profits: Deceleration Ahead,” Global Economic Forum, March 31, 2006).
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