Companies Post Best Quarter Ever -- Not a Bakken Story

Do not worry; this post will disappear shortly, but I post some notes for personal and archival reasons. I will return to the Bakken shortly.  If you don't want to read about this, I would highly recommend reading about the Lodgepole (posted a couple days ago for those who missed it).

I started this website as an educational website about the Bakken in North Dakota; it gradually morphed into covering the entire oil industry in North Dakota. Over time, I realized it was impossible to separate investing issues in the oil industry from the educational aspect of the Bakken. So, gradually, the site has morphed into about 45/45: educational / investing posts about the Bakken. I suppose, in a sense, one could argue that all posts about the oil industry ultimately lead back to investing.

The other 10 percent consists of investing in general, political comments, and miscellaneous trivia.

Today the New York Times is reporting that in terms of profits, US companies had their best quarter ever. I never, never would have guessed that with all the negative mainstream media news.

This is being reported as the best quarter ever. Not the best quarter since the current recession began; not the best quarter since the dot.com bubble; not the best quarter in a decade; not the best decade in fifty years; but in words no one can misunderstand: the best quarter ever.

Businesses earned profits at an annual rate of $1.659 trillion in the third quarter; that is the highest figure recorded since the government began keeping records more than 60 years ago (non-inflation-adjusted).

The next-highest annual corporate profits level on record was in the third quarter of 2006, $1.655 trillion.

Since their cyclical low in the fourth quarter of 2008, profits have grown for seven consecutive quarters, at some of the fasted rates in history.

I recently posted that the Bakken has offered recurrent opportunities to invest. It appears that the opportunities exist in the general market.