Profits bounced back from a terrible third quarter which had an industry-aggregate loss of -2.57% as a percentage of revenues, and went back up to a more reasonable 4.38%. The difference was the massive writedowns of the third quarter which resulted in a -10.97% loss in printing companies with more than $25 million in assets. For the past six quarters, the industry has averaged 2.96% profits, but large printers are just under breakeven. Small and mid-size printers averaged 6.26% in that period. Their fourth quarter was 5.01% while larger printers was 3.76%. The four-quarter moving total of printing industry profits was $2.3 billion, which is the second lowest amount in the last 20 quarters.
