On an ongoing basis, manufacturers are raising prices because they can. It enhances profitability, largely because there are few incremental costs, and consumers' response to a higher price is relatively modest. |
Sara Lee was an exceptional company with compounded earnings-per-share growth exceeding 12% a year for 25 years. But I think the clock stopped for Sara Lee in 1995. |
The ruling eliminates the risk of a large-scale financial verdict, should increase the market's visibility of Philip Morris' long-term U.S. tobacco market share and profit growth, and avoids press coverage of the industry airing its internal issues in public. |
Tobacco operating fundamentals sequentially strengthened from the first to the second quarter, and third-quarter performance generally retained that stronger momentum. Results are also particularly encouraging, in our view, given Kraft's continued weak and disappointing overall operating performance...[Philip Morris USA] is delivering an improved balance of market share and operating profit performance. |