Corning earnings surpass expectations on strong LCD sales

Corning (GLW), the 158-year old glass manufacturer, reported third quarter profit down 16 percent on Monday. But Wall Street cheered as the results beat expectations on strong demand for LCD screens used in flat-panel televisions and laptops. Corning, the world's biggest maker of LCD glass with over 50 percent market share, said it earned $643 million, or 41 cents a share, in the last quarter, down from $768 million, one year earlier, on revenue of $1.5 billion.

"The improvement we have seen over the past two quarters has increased our optimism for the fourth quarter," Wendell P. Weeks, Corning's chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement.