Oil, energy second-quarter winners
Companies are reporting their profits for the second quarter, and oil and energy have profited from high prices. But Amy Scott reports if you don't count banks and other financial companies, earnings actually improved a bit.
A trader looks over computer monitors showing financial data on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. (Chris Hondros/Getty Images)
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TEXT OF STORY
Bob Moon: Today wraps up the last official week of the current earnings season. Retailers Ann Taylor and Perry Ellis are among the last trickle of companies to report their profits for the second quarter of the year. As our New York Bureau Chief Amy Scott reports, now analysts are looking ahead.
Amy Scott: Overall, corporate profits fell more than 20 percent in the second quarter. That's according to Al Goldman, chief market strategist at Wachovia Securities. He says if you don't count banks and other financial companies, earnings actually improved a bit.
Al Goldman: The financial group has been the number one problem in the market for a year now because of the subprime mortgage debacle and the very, very dramatic write-offs that it has created.
Among the winners in the second quarter: oil and energy companies, naturally, profited from high prices. Goldman says technology firms cashed in on sales overseas.
But Rod Smyth with Riverfront Investment Group says economies in Europe and even China are slowing down.
Rod Smyth: And you're going to have a third quarter without the benefits of tax rebates here in the U.S., so I think the third quarter is going to be where some of the reality hits.
And market analysts won't get much of a break. Some companies are already turning in their third-quarter earnings.
In New York, I'm Amy Scott for Marketplace.
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