Analysts say that an expensive cosmetics company, no matter how profitable, does not mesh with Nestlé's enormous portfolio of global food and health brands.
But beyond a certain point, whether, on average, most companies are more or less profitable does not necessarily have anything to do with how well the economy is performing.
But Mr. McNamara cautioned that Black Friday — named for the day when, historically, retailers moved into the black, or became profitable — did not supply anywhere near the majority of November sales for stores.
Weinstein had opened the session to the public, and someone in the audience asked Zell whether, in the current environment, "where some seem to be doing almost anything to be profitable, does not the concept of 'business ethics' seem to be an oxymoron?
But he said the system's programming "will do just fine whether or not there's federal subsidy" and brought up Big Bird's home: "The people from 'Sesame Street' have made it clear that Big Bird is quite profitable, doesn't need the government subsidy".
But just because the company can be profitable does not mean it will be profitable.
Scanning a single work such as the Origin for passages relevant to one's questions or research problems takes a significant amount of time, though it is profitable do so, as many researchers have done many times.
If MarketWatch.com's U.K. operation becomes profitable, do you think the company and Wall Street would exclude it to maintain consistent comparison with past quarters or hype dramatic year-over-year bottom-line improvement?
The company, which is already profitable, does about $300,000 in trading volume per day with a 0.6percentt fee on buys and sells.
