The Dow Industrials company with the best earnings improvement in the 4Q 2012 as compared with the 4Q 2011 was JPMorgan Chase.
On the other hand, when you look at the below list of Dow Industrial companies, manufacturers in many different industries are the ones which have shown the most earnings deterioration from the 4Q 2011.
When the 30 Dow Industrial companies, which represent the very best companies in a broad industry spectrum, generate total earnings growth in the 4Q 2012 of only 1%, the US economy is really struggling.
Thus, the worst thing for the US Congress to do right now is to spend all of its time on US Debt Reduction by across-the-board US Government Cost Cuts. But that is precisely what the US Congress is doing, thus another case of why its approval rating with US citizens is so incredibly low.
Instead, the focus of the US Congress should now be on how to wisely, and cost effectively, stimulate much needed demand in the US economy, with directly targeted US job creation initiatives, which simultaneously also benefit the earnings of US companies of all sizes from the resultant increased demand. Probably the wisest initiative here would be to increase significantly the US Federal Minimum Wage, which would substantially increase demand immediately. And probably the second wisest initiative here would be to substantially increase US infrastructure investments of all types, wisely chosen to both minimize the cost and maximize the benefit to the US Government by giving due consideration to including such measures as user fees and climate change friendly energy savings.
This Adjusted After-tax Net Income is what was disclosed in the company's earnings release in both the 4Q 2012 and the 4Q 2011, and it excludes Special, Unusual Items which are significant in amount relative to Reported Net Income. In cases where the amounts of these Special, Unusual Items are not sufficiently significant in amount, Generally Accepted After-tax Net Income was used below.
Below here are the Adjusted After-tax Net Income of each of these 30 Dow Industrial companies in the 4Qs of both 2012 and 2011:
| 4Q 2012 | 4Q 2011 | |||
| Non-GAAP | Non-GAAP | |||
| Dow | Adjusted | Adjusted | Increase | Increase |
| Industrials | Net | Net | (Decrease) | (Decrease) |
| Company | Income | Income | Amount | % |
| mils of $s | mils of $s | mils of $s | ||
| ExxonMobil | 9,950 | 9,400 | 550 | 6% |
| Microsoft | 6,377 | 6,624 | (247) | -4% |
| IBM | 6,129 | 5,597 | 532 | 10% |
| Chevron | 5,845 | 5,123 | 722 | 14% |
| JPMorgan Chase | 5,692 | 3,728 | 1,964 | 53% |
| General Electric | 4,666 | 4,142 | 524 | 13% |
| Procter & Gamble | 4,647 | 4,328 | 319 | 7% |
| Walmart | 3,825 | 3,501 | 324 | 9% |
| Pfizer | 3,512 | 3,784 | (272) | -7% |
| Johnson & Johnson | 3,376 | 3,129 | 247 | 8% |
| Intel | 2,609 | 3,523 | (914) | -26% |
| Cisco Systems | 2,569 | 2,322 | 247 | 11% |
| Merck | 2,540 | 2,978 | (438) | -15% |
| AT&T | 2,499 | 2,382 | 117 | 5% |
| Hewlett Packard | 2,291 | 2,350 | (59) | -3% |
| Coca Cola | 2,047 | 1,821 | 226 | 12% |
| McDonald's | 1,396 | 1,377 | 19 | 1% |
| Walt Disney | 1,382 | 1,464 | (82) | -6% |
| UnitedHealth | 1,244 | 1,258 | (14) | -1% |
| American Express | 1,231 | 1,192 | 39 | 3% |
| United Technologies | 1,176 | 1,269 | (93) | -7% |
| Boeing | 1,116 | 1,050 | 66 | 6% |
| Home Depot | 1,112 | 934 | 178 | 19% |
| Verizon | 1,088 | 1,474 | (386) | -26% |
| 3M | 1,004 | 974 | 30 | 3% |
| Caterpillar | 980 | 1,562 | (582) | -37% |
| Bank of America (A) | 732 | 2,572 | (1,840) | -72% |
| Travelers | 304 | 618 | (314) | -51% |
| DuPont | 110 | 246 | (136) | -55% |
| Alcoa | 64 | (34) | 98 | 288% |
| Total all 30 | 81,513 | 80,688 | 825 | 1% |
| (A) Bank of America above numbers are GAAP After-tax Net Income plus Goodwill Impairment Charge | ||||
