DID THEY SAY WORST SINCE HOOVER? THEY MEANT AS GOOD AS CLINTON:

US on course for record run of profits (Gary Duncan, 11/21/05, Times of London)

Research by David Rosenberg, chief North American economist at Merrill Lynch, shows that US groups in the blue chip S&P 500 index have so far recorded a 16 per cent year-on-year rise in operating earnings per share in the third quarter, with just a few companies left to report results.

Merrill’s analysis finds that this bullish performance will mark the 14th quarter in a row in which the S&P 500’s component companies have racked up operating profits growth in double figures.

This eclipses the previous 13-quarter run of double-digit earnings growth, when US companies emerged from the early 1990s downturn to mark the best such showing for seven decades.