Procter & Gamble and Colgate-Palmolive, two of the world's largest consumer goods companies, yesterday powered through disruption caused by recent US hurricanes and higher commodity and energy costs to report strongly higher earnings.

But P&G signalled that it was nervous about the health of the US consumer by declining to raise earnings forecasts, in spite of a 4.5 per cent rise in first-quarter profit. It was the first earnings report since P&G completed its $57bn acquisition of Gillette.