Big Fourth-Quarter Earnings Increase Buoyed 1993 Results

Chemical company fortunes are finally beginning to pick up. After four straight years of decline for the chemical industry, recovery seems at last to be at hand. Between the end of 1988 and the final quarter of 1992, earnings from the 30 chemical companies regularly surveyed by C&EN had fallen a total of 38%. Now, however, they have started back with an estimated 8% rise for all of 1993. Certainly this does not bring them all the way back to what they once were, but if s a start. When the year began, it did not look like 1993 would be any better than the previous years. After all, earnings in the first quarter were still down from the comparable year-earlier period, extending a long string of declining results. However, in the second and third quarters, business began to pick up and chemical companies finished the year with a strong fourth-quarter performance. Earnings from 28 ...