United Tech Tops Street; Shares Fall

HARTFORD, Conn. (TheStreet) -- Industrial conglomerate United Technologies(UTX Quote), it of Pratt & Whitney engines and Sikorsky helicopters, couldn't help but focus on its operating margins in its third-quarter earnings release.

Unsurprisingly, those margins widened from a year ago, as they have at nearly all big corporations this earnings season. Margins expand as payrolls, of course, contract.

United Technologies thus topped analysts' expectations by a hair: revenue of $13.38 billion, compared with a consensus target on Wall Street of $13.31 billion, and earnings per share of $1.14, two cents better than the average estimate.

Year-over-year, however, every one of the sprawling concern's divisions saw declines on the top and bottom lines. Overall, revenue fell 11% while earnings shrank by 17% from the same period of 2008.

Only the company's Sikorsky unit, maker of the Black Hawk, registered growth, thanks to the Pentagon, which has been amassing arms for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Sikorsky revenue rose 14.6% to $1.65 billion.

The company refined its projection for full-year EPS, pinning the number at $4.10, the middle point of its previously disseminated range of $4.00 to $4.20 a share.