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Crown Holdings tumbles after 3Q's "mixed" quality

NEW YORK (AP) - Crown Holdings Inc. fell Thursday after the food and drink packaging maker reported third-quarter profit dropping 5 percent and an analyst said the quality of the earnings was "mixed."

Philadelphia-based Crown said late Wednesday it earned 67 cents per share, down from 70 cents per share, as a stronger dollar limited exports and the company booked a charge for closing three plants.

Without the one-time cost for the plant closures, Crown earned 81 cents per share, a penny higher than the 80-cent-per-share consensus of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters.

Revenue in the third quarter fell 4 percent to $2.28 billion from $2.37 billion, missing analysts' average forecast of $2.34 billion.

Before the market opened Thursday, Baird analyst Ghansham Panjabi correctly predicted that the "mixed earnings quality out of the third quarter 2009 report could prompt some profit taking."

And so it did: By early afternoon shares had fallen $2.40, or 8.2 percent, to $26.81. In the last 52 weeks, the stock has ranged from $13.37 to $27.70.

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