Materials giant DuPont surges on mask sales — diversification is its middle name

Sounds like the love interest from an 18th century French novel... DuPont de Nemours is actually a massive materials, ingredients, and electronic company. Founded in 1802 to make gunpowder, DuPont now produces everything from industrial enzymes to military vehicle armor. DuPont probably made the protein in your snack bar and the gelatin in your soft capsule pill. But now it's winning in one timely area: masks.

• DuPont makes the materials used to produce masks and other Personal Protective Equipment. It repurposed its engine-protecting tech to be used as a filter in N95 respirator masks, and has been pumping out 9M PPE garments/month.
• Demand for masks and other PPE equipment has skyrocketed to fight COVID-19, boosting DuPont's sales. The materials/chemical giant brought in an estimated $5.2B total sales for the quarter, higher than what was expected pre-corona.

But it's not all sales and sunshine... DuPont's auto and industrial materials division isn't doing too hot. Car makers aren't buying DuPont's auto materials since demand has seriously slumped. So DuPont shut down some of its transportation/industrial manufacturing plants and asked banks for billions more in credit lines.