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Not enough profit
The problem isn't that Exxon Mobil's profit was too big, it was that it was too small.
It earned nearly $12 billion, excluding a charge for damages in the Exxon Valdez case, but fell short of analysts' predictions of $13 billion. In other words, the company let down its investors, those individuals and institutions who took a chance buying Exxon Mobil's stock in the belief that the company would reward them with better performance than it did.
These investors, by the way, include millions of average folks whose retirement accounts, pensions and mutual funds hold, directly or indirectly, Exxon Mobil shares.
Even if you aren't among those legions of shareholders, though, another number in the company's earnings release should concern you, as it should the Beltway blowhards.
Exxon Mobil's worldwide oil production slid by about 10 percent. In other words, our biggest oil company pumped less oil than it did a year earlier. That's been the trend for five quarters now.