How can one find company profit margins? I'd like to verify that Exxon made $10b

[bull]

A DJ on a local radio station today said that Exxon made a record $10billion (yea, BILLION) in the first quarter of '05. How does one verify such information? Does the Wall Street Journal website have this kind of information?

If this information is correct it's just a complete outrage. I don't know what can be done that would truly have an impact the oil companies' bottom line but I'd sure like to find a sure-fire method of doing it. It sure isn't the "don't buy gas on Tuesday" scheme. There's got to be some federal price-fixing law that can be interpreted to call the oil companies into question. I'll admit it, I'd just like to see them suffer big time for what they're doing. They are driving the American economy into the ground and getting rich doing it.

Sorry. Rant over.

[Troy]

Sorry, that is $7.86 billion in Q1 and $7.64 billion in Q2. They made a little over $25 billion last year ($8.42 billion in Q4, $5.68 billion in Q3, and $5.79 billion in Q2). Make sure you read the what/why/how before jumping to conclusions...

The gap between crude oil costs and prices for refined fuels was the widest ever, as consumption rose faster than supplies. Exxon's refining and marketing profit rose 34 percent, to $2.02 billion, mostly outside the United States.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/28/AR2005072802085.html

You can find info at places like thestreet.com or most any news service like Yahoo.
http://tools.thestreet.com/rmy/quotes.html?pg=qcn&symb=XOM

OR, you could always try Google:
http://www.google.com/search?as_q=exxon+profit&num=100&hl=en&newwindow=1&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=lang_en&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&safe=off

Troy

[bull]

Apparently the oil companies will maintain these large profit margins no matter what the supply vs. demand until the supply completely dries up because demand keeps increasing. Perhaps they are bracing themselves for a shortage by raising the prices, I don't know, I'm not an ecomomist but that is a HUGE profit margin. I found this quote interesting: "The quarterly profit was the third-highest in the company's history. Revenue climbed 25 percent, to $88.57 billion, Exxon said. A doubling of oil prices since 2003 has put the Irving, Tex.-based company on a pace to surpass Wal-Mart Stores Inc. this year as the largest U.S. company by total revenue." So basically, no matter how much of a challenge they have in finding new sources of oil they will continue to make profits in the billions unless the demand drops off, which I don't see happening. They can talk about how much it costs for research and development and all that but we are talking profit here. That's AFTER payroll, research costs, refinement costs, advertising, etc.

[Vainglory, Esq.]

Gee, we wouldn't want them to make a profit would we?  Welcome to freedom.

[Rocky]

Vain:

All I know is that Exxon is buying back stock at an average of 5 billion a quarter. 

If shareholders are an ever diminishing number, than who is receiving all the extra profits?

I have friends at several levels at Sea River(Exxon's CYA company since Valdeze)  they know, and I do too.

It's criminal.

[Troy]

Stop buying gas, oil, plastic, and don't fly or ride public transportation and they'll go out of business...

Troy

[Arthu®]

Or invent a usuable substitude for fosil fuels. Now really than you would make billions and what would you think about the people that would be whining about you making a billion. That's probably the same as the people of exxon think right now.

Arthur

[bull]

Gee, we wouldn't want them to make a profit would we?   Welcome to freedom.

It's not that simple when it comes to oil. We're not talking about stupid consumer items like ipods, digital cameras and Coca-Cola -- basically everything WalMart sells. This economy of this nation is almost completely dependent on oil. They might as well be selling air.

Posted on: Today at 08:19:17 AMPosted by: Troy 
Insert Quote
Stop buying gas, oil, plastic, and don't fly or ride public transportation and they'll go out of business...

Troy

Very funny. You've just helped me make the point I made above.

[Troy]

Walmart sells food and clothing along with a whole host of necessities. What is a greater necessity: gas or food? I can live without gas. People in other countries live just fine without gas as well. Walmart is still a bigger company than Exxon so apparently people can afford all those "stupid consumer items". The people who continue to buy the products out of convenience are as much to blame as the company selling the products. Think of it this way, if we had some federal law to regulate what a company can charge then they may just decide that it isn't worth doing business here. Where would we be if Exxon just packed up and left the U.S. to sell oil/gas in China?

I guess I should also point out that Exxon had $88.6 billion in sales to make that $7.64 billion in profits which equates to 8.6% of sales. In the same time period, Lowe's (Home improvement) made 7%, Motorola made 10.6%, and Lucent made 15.9% yet I haven't seen a single thread about regulating them.

Troy

[bull]

Walmart sells food and clothing along with a whole host of necessities. What is a greater necessity: gas or food? I can live without gas.

Troy

Really? I'd like to see how long this nation could last without gas and diesel. Does the food at WalMart just appear on the shelves or does a midwest farmer grow it using a diesel-powered tractor? How does the food get from the farm to the processing plant? Diesel-powered trains, trucks or ships. How does it get from there to the distribution plants, and from there to the stores? When the price of oil goes up so does the price of everything else, even food, "a whole host of necessities" and "stupid consumer items." If we ever run out of oil I suggest you make sure you head for the mountains with a nice cache of weapons and ammo, a how-to book on hunting fishing, one on Amish farming practices and another on building log homes. You can probably get all that stuff at WalMart while the other idiots are grabbing plasma TVs.

[Vainglory, Esq.]

Since when did the free market become criminal?

[Troy]

I said *I* (me, personally) could live without gas - I didn't say the entire nation could. Did you read the rest of it? I definitely could live on half of the gas I buy now but too many people would rather complain about profits and prices instead of doing anything themselves to decrease consumption (which brings the price down). I'm fully aware of how everything is tied together - and I'm glad you brought it up - but reading these threads it becomes readily apparent that many people think only of themselves. That's not a knock on you Bull so I hope you don't read it that way. Maybe I'm just tired of reading the same old stuff. I hope that at least answered your original question about the $10 billion.

FYI - I don't need to head for the mountains - I live close enough to the boonies as it is and I already have the guns, ammunition, fishing poles, and How-to books.

Troy

[Lowprofile]

So Young, So Angry.....Damm That Rap Music!

[bull]

Since when did the free market become criminal?

Is price gouging legal? It's unethical for sure. I know price fixing is illegal, and so are monopolies. Listen, Vain, I'm more politically conservative than you ever thought of being so don't give me the trite line on free market capitalism. At some point though you have to think about people who live everyday life on a fixed income level and think beyond the bottom line if you have any scruples at all. We are still "one nation under God" aren't we? Even myself, who's voted straight Republican since he was 18 (20 yrs now), can see that. All Exxon cares about is the stockholders, correct? They honestly don't care that Delta and NW Airlines just filed Chapter 11 (http://www.usatoday.com/money/biztravel/2005-09-14-delta-bankruptcy_x.htm?csp=24) due to overly high fuel prices, and they certainly don't give an F-bomb that I have to shop at Goodwill and Winco to afford my 25-mile drive to work, take my kids to school, buy a loaf of bread, etc., as long as they maintain those 10-figure profits. I'd say a $7.6 billion profit is way more generous than any company deserves to have on such a necessary commodity.

Posted by: Troy  
I said *I* (me, personally) could live without gas - I didn't say the entire nation could. Did you read the rest of it? I definitely could live on half of the gas I buy now but too many people would rather complain about profits and prices instead of doing anything themselves to decrease consumption (which brings the price down). I'm fully aware of how everything is tied together - and I'm glad you brought it up - but reading these threads it becomes readily apparent that many people think only of themselves. That's not a knock on you Bull so I hope you don't read it that way. Maybe I'm just tired of reading the same old stuff. I hope that at least answered your original question about the $10 billion.

FYI - I don't need to head for the mountains - I live close enough to the boonies as it is and I already have the guns, ammunition, fishing poles, and How-to books.

Troy

Point taken. And yes I did read all of it but I was also referring to people who can do very little to curb their fuel intake which includes most small businesses in this country like farmers, truckers, railroads, etc. And that will effect you if things keep going the way they are. You are lucky if you can work at home but most people are not, and if the oil prices continue to climb everything you touch will cost more and more. So in order to survive as you do now you will have to buy increasingly expensive items and you will be forced to curb more than just your gas expenses. I honestly do not care when companies make profits, it would be foolish to think otherwise, however I do think than when a company has to maintain record profits on a product that keeps this country afloat there is an ethical problem with the leadership of that company. I'm not worried about myself because I can make changes if I need to. I'm worried about this nation as a whole and I'm also worried about all the displaced workers out there who will find it increasingly difficult to find work in a climate where so many businesses are already stretched too thin to hire them. Oh well, nothing I can do about it but 'skip the trip' and stay home I guess.

Oh wait, I can't stay home. I've got to get out there to support those small businesses.

[Vainglory, Esq.]

Go study some economics.  By the way, I'm politically libertarian.  If you're conservative, congratulations, but lord knows they're not free market anymore.

Obviously.

[last426]

Go study some economics.   By the way, I'm politically libertarian.   If you're conservative, congratulations, but lord knows they're not free market anymore.  Obviously.

Funny what some schooling will do.  Hey, what school are you going to now (I might be wrong but I thought you were planning on some school)?

[bull]

Funny what some schooling will do.  

Yea, sometimes it turns you into a left wing attorney.

[Vainglory, Esq.]

Go study some economics.   By the way, I'm politically libertarian.   If you're conservative, congratulations, but lord knows they're not free market anymore.   Obviously.

Funny what some schooling will do.   Hey, what school are you going to now (I might be wrong but I thought you were planning on some school)?

I'm finishing up at USC (in another economics class, if you can believe it).  Right now I'm applying to law schools.  Not Boalt, sorry.

[bull]

Go study some economics.  

Thanks for the advice, whipper-snapper, but at 38 I really have no desire to step foot on a college campus again or sit around reading internet stories about the virtues of Exxon executives so I can argue economics with a kid who considers waving his johnson at every skirt an act of nobility. And head-knowledge of global economics doesn't really count for jack squat when you've got a wife, two kids and a mortgage. Especially when Exxon is one of your dependents along with thousands of able-bodied welfare recipients. When you enter real life and the water behind your ears dries out a little you may just realize that principles sometimes have to make way for survival. And I don't mean the looting of plasma TVs.

[Vainglory, Esq.]

Boy gramps, you really showed me.

Next time, try an actual argument.

[73dodge]

So what I gather from this thread is that if you market a essential commodity like gas you should not be allowed to make a profit from it? If you have something that everyone needs than you should have to forced to give it away for the common good? I hate buying gas at 3.00 a gallon but the fact that it's at 3 a gallon is not a factor of greed it's a factor of supply and demand. There is less of it available and it costs more when it's in abundanant supply it will be cheaper. The fact that exxon makes 10 cents profit from every dollar it makes at the pump does not drive up the cost of gallon. they are making bigger profits because they are selling gas in record numbers. If you made a product and sold it for a dollar and you made 10 cents profit from it, it stands to reason that if you keep selling more and more of it every year your profit would increase from year to year.

And the only way to increase supply is to

1 lessen the demand stop driving or switch to a smaller car
2 import more oil 
3 increase refining capacity because our refineries are running at 110% and you see what happens when you interupt that for a little bit. But Oh wait we can't build new oil refineries because the whining democrats and their left wing handlers like the Enviromental wakkos won't let us build new oil refineries because that might disturb the natural habitat of the native wild sand flea.
4 drill for our own oil instead of importing it. Oh wait can't do that either see point 3


Now the fact that the GOVERNMENT takes 40+ cents from every gallon should make you madder than getting PO at exxon. Why don't we demand that the local and federal government stop taxing every gallon of gas and then you will see how much the price of gas drops per gallon.


It's funny we demand that exxon take a lower profit but we don't demand that the government take a lower "profit" from gas.

So bottom line if we demand that exxon not make a  profit because they sell a needed comodity why don't we demand that they do the same for people who sell and produce:

food
medical care
private schooling
cars (we all need cars to get to work)

As a matter of fact why don't we demand they give that stuff away we all need that stuff and dammit it's our basic human right to have these things

Why that would be called socialism, and we all know that socialism is a great success



I modified my earlier post to clarify my point better

[Vainglory, Esq.]

Woohoo!  Somebody's thinking!

Go 73 Dodge!

[Troy]

Ok, I'm gonna do something I normally don't do but no one else read my links closely...

Exxon made record profits AND cut production. There, that's my good deed for the day. Ok, one more: as much as I hate to say it, the federal government shouldn't cut taxes on gasoline because the large bulk of it is earmarked for highway funds. I don't know what individual states spend it on though. As you may know, the highways aren't the greatest as it is and cutting the money set aside for repairs would surely come back to bite us in the rear. Now, if we could get them to stop paying for walking trails with highway funds I'd be happier. Oil companies are businesses and their sole purpose is to make a profit for themselves and their investors. No one starts a business with the intention of going bankrupt. Also, markets fluctuate so there are times when companies lose money so you have to have some very good quarters to recuperate.

Other Q2 2005 examples that no one is whining about: Citigroup 17.9%, All State 13.1%, Lucent 15.9%, Corning 14.5%, Walt Disney 8.9%, and General Electric 11.2%. Banks and insurance companies continually outperform oil companies yet for some reason they aren't the bad guys (but I bet they directly impact more people than oil companies do). I think it's funny when people buy gas on a high interest credit card and then complain about the price.

Troy

[jmanscharger]

I have no problem with the oil companies making money, however it is windfall profits by monopolies that make me angry and lead to bad ideas like socialism and price controls- let's just take the oil companies from the monoplies and the government can run them(disaster). Our large corporations forget history when markets are free, they correct themselves on supply and demand. But when you have a monopoly on a product everyone wants and you control the supply you can manipulate and take windfall profits. The only reason not to take windfall profits is either care for your customer or fear you will create a backlash that will do damage. The free market would correct itself, but this is not a free market it is manipulated by too many factors. I always hate it when gas stations raise prices- unless the truck is delivering new fuel they didn't pay more for what they already had on hand, someone help me on this.
Money is not the root of evil, the love of money is the root of evil.
Before you want to stick it to the oil companies...If you controlled the supply of classic Chargers would you sell them for a fair profit or hold back to make the most money possible...

[Vainglory, Esq.]

I have no problem with the oil companies making money, however it is windfall profits by monopolies that make me angry and lead to bad ideas like socialism and price controls- let's just take the oil companies from the monoplies and the government can run them(disaster). Our large corporations forget history when markets are free, they correct themselves on supply and demand. But when you have a monopoly on a product everyone wants and you control the supply you can manipulate and take windfall profits. The only reason not to take windfall profits is either care for your customer or fear you will create a backlash that will do damage. The free market would correct itself, but this is not a free market it is manipulated by too many factors. I always hate it when gas stations raise prices- unless the truck is delivering new fuel they didn't pay more for what they already had on hand, someone help me on this.
Money is not the root of evil, the love of money is the root of evil.

After six years of economics, I have no idea what that meant.