Profits

Last week dozens of big and little corporations selling biscuits, brake shoes, dynamos, table salt, telephones, bottle glass, gum and gas machines reported their profits and losses for the first half of 1934. A majority had done better in the second quarter than in the first. Of 19 big corporations only four, A. T. & T., Wrigley. National Biscuit, Corn Products, earned less than they had in the first six months of 1933. Five others jumped into the black, against losses last year: four already in the black doubled or nearly doubled their earnings; the rest showed moderate improvement&151:all reflecting the mixed conditions of general business.

P: The price paid for corn normally represents 60% of the production costs of Corn Products Refining Co. (corn starch, Karo corn syrup. Mazola oil, corn derivatives). With 1934 corn prices substantially higher than last year's, it reported half-year profits of only $4,402,000 against $5,188,000 for the first half of 1933.

P: No one has been more active in sponsoring the National Housing Act than President Lewis H. Brown of Johns-Manville Corp. But housing is still in the future. Huge Johns-Manville was lucky enough to wangle a $173,000 profit against a half-year deficit of $861.000 in 1933.

P: Caterpillar Tractor was a speculative favorite four years ago when Russia began to worship the tractor. But Caterpillar went into the red when its Red orders stopped. Emergency relief road building programs and public works construction in the U. S. pulled it out late last year. Profits: $2,061,000 for the first six months of 1934 against a deficit of nearly half a million in 1933's first half.

P: Legal beer helped boost the net profit of Owens-Illinois Glass Co., which has a machine to make 240 bottles a minute, to $4.208.000 for the year ended June 30, 1933. Beer bottle sales were beginning to stabilize when Repeal opened up the demand for wine and liquor bottles which are not regularly refilled. Owens-Illinois' net profit for the year ended June 30, 1934 was up nearly 40% to $5,854,000.

P: Operating under a rigid and highly efficient cost control policy. Continental Can Co. last year translated a 20% gain in dollar sales into a 56% gain in net profit. Food and fruit packing continued to improve, lifting Continental Can's net for the year ended June 30, 1934 to $9.059.000 against $5,431,000 for the previous year.

P: A slow-going old giant is National Biscuit. But despite tonnage declines in its ''sweet" lines, its six months' profit, down 3% from the first half of 1933, was over $6,000,000. A big beneficiary: Ogden L. Mills.

P:Smart, hustling American Brake Shoe & Foundry Co. and subsidiaries reported half-year profits of $658,000, up 170%, from the first six months of 1933.

P: Total U. S. refrigerator sales through May were up 80% over the first five months of last year. General Electric, which manufactures all things electrical including a special cheap refrigerator for TVA, reported half-year sales of $80,983,000 against $61,773,000 for the first six months of 1933, and half-year profits of $9,463,000 against $5,953,000.

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