Business: Fat Fourth

How fast are earnings picking up to match the recovery? From U.S. business last week came fourth-quarter reports that showed profits rising fast enough in many cases to offset the previous slowdown and turn 1958 into a fine year. After limping along 33% behind 1957 for the first nine months, Monsanto Chemical Co. reported the best fourth quarter in history, so good that full-year earnings totaled $1.55 per share, only 7.7% behind last year. Philco's fourth quarter nearly doubled last year's rate. Seeburg Corp. announced 54¢ a share in the first quarter of its fiscal 1959 v. only 50¢ for the...

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