Perhaps I'm just giddy from the pleasant weather this winter, but I can't help seeing springtime in many of the statistical planks of the U.S. economy.
Durable-goods orders for December were better than anticipated. The Conference Board's newly tweaked Index of Leading Economic Indicators rose for a third straight month.
On Wednesday, the Federal Open Market Committee said point-blank that interest rates would go nowhere for the next three years. (Good news for borrowers, not savers.)
But what really struck me are the boffo financial results reported by some publicly held companies this week, including Apple Inc., which is on a totally different plane right now, and Caterpillar Inc., the maker of construction and mining equipment.
Even several local companies posted double-digit increases in sales and earnings. Radnor-based Airgas Inc. said net sales for its third quarter rose 12 percent, to $1.15 billion. Net earnings for the industrial and medical gas distributor rose to $72.3 million, or 93 cents per share, from $55.8 million, or 65 cents per share.
Sales and profits were also up sharply for Carpenter Technology Corp. Second- quarter net sales for the maker of specialty steels and other alloys were $431.1 million vs. $375.6 million for the same quarter in 2010. Net income rose to $23.6 million, or 52 cents per share, compared with $9.3 million, or 21 cents per share.
Ametek Inc., another local industrial company, said it set company records for sales, operating income, operating margins, and earnings per share. The Berwyn company said fourth-quarter sales were up 13 percent, to $762.8 million. Net income increased 25 percent, to $101.9 million, or 63 cents per share.
So business sounds good. Things are revving up, and the jobs machine will start cranking out more new hires any day now, right?
I called Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P Indices and guru of the Standard & Poor's 500 index, who set me straight. Of the 171 big companies in the index that reported financial results as of Thursday morning, 93 beat analysts' expectations, 55 missed, and 23 matched expectations.
Another way to view it is that 54 percent of the S&P 500 that had reported so far had beaten expectations, which is actually below the 70 percent average of the last several years, according to Silverblatt.
