(FORTUNE Magazine) – THE MOMENT has arrived for many companies that were awaiting their turn while the long expansion proceeded. As economic activity shifts to the capital goods sector, industries from machine tools to computers can look forward to a season in the sun. But the best is over for most makers of consumer products.

-- CARS: In overdrive. Detroit is riding high on the low dollar. Says Charles J. Brady, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co.: ''The Big Three now have their cost base in the low-cost country -- America.'' They are also reaping the benefits of cost cutting begun early in the decade, and the pruning continues: Ford has reduced its salaried head count for 35 consecutive quarters. Brady thinks U.S. automakers' profits will be up 6.4% to $10.1 billion in 1988, and another 14% in 1989. The sales picture doesn't look bad, either. FORTUNE sees nearly a 5% increase to 14.8 million autos and trucks for 1988, and a flat 1989. Detroit is getting a bigger piece of the market: Auto imports should drop between 5% and 10% this year to around three million and stay at that level in 1989, though cars built in America by Japanese automakers are claiming a growing market share. Sales could slow if federal budget cutters increase gasoline taxes late next year. On the other hand, some analysts think replacement demand will strengthen. Brady points out that more than a quarter of the vehicles on the road are ten years old or more. Adds Ann Knight, an analyst at Paine Webber: ''The auto industry cycle has extended itself so far that some cars bought in the early part are now coming in for replacement. It's like the smoothing effect of one cycle merging into another.'' (For more on the Big Three's prospects, see Personal Investing.)

-- HOUSING: Lumbering. There's not much lift, but at least today's housing market seems to have a solid floor. Starts will fall 7.5% to 1.5 million in 1988, and remain at the same level for 1989. The big drop to an annual rate of 1.38 million in May probably doesn't indicate any serious new weakness. Fundamental demand remains strong, particularly for single-family homes. A slight rise in interest rates later this year will have little effect. FORTUNE expects apartment construction to fall twice as fast as single-family homes in 1988, but rebound slightly in 1989. The plodding pace of homebuilding is part of the pattern of slower growth in the appliance industry.

-- CLOTHING: Disheveled. Imports were down 9% in unit volume during the first four months, so why aren't apparel manufacturers dressed for success? Answer: Underwhelmed consumers are staying out of stores, and the stores themselves are combining at a dizzying pace, throwing longstanding sales relationships into a tizzy. And higher prices aren't sticking. Profits will rise only a thread this year. The fashion news has been no news, after last year's ill- fated hemming and hawing with short skirts. Jay J. Meltzer, an analyst for Goldman Sachs, sees some light at the end of the closet: ''The neater, more conservative look for fall just may be the ticket.'' He predicts 6% to 7% growth in sales next year, and earnings gains of 10% to 15%.

-- AEROSPACE: Worried. Despite the effects of the megaprobe of the defense business, revenues will set another record in 1988 from old military contracts. But rising costs will flatten profits, and 1989 looks like the start of a big slide as defense spending heads down. Some aerospace hands think, perhaps hopefully and surely ironically, that business might turn up under a Democratic President. Says Harry Biederman, Lockheed's chief economist: ''Dukakis has mentioned an emphasis on conventional weapons, and that's where the real revenues are. They cost ten times as much as strategic weapons, and we're way behind.'' At least commercial aircraft sales are booming. The world's airlines are ordering jets at the unprecedented rate of $35 billion this year, and U.S. manufacturers, especially Boeing, are getting most of it. Though such growth can't continue, demand should nonetheless remain strong as long as world air traffic continues to grow -- which most analysts expect it to for several years.

-- COMPUTERS AND ELECTRONICS: Adding up. The shortage of memory chips is limiting sales, but 1988 will be a year to remember anyway. The industry, including hardware, software, and services, will grow 13.5% to about $161 billion, and another 12.8% in 1989, predicts William Caffery, an analyst with Gartner Group, the respected Stamford, Connecticut, research firm recently bought by Saatchi & Saatchi. Exports will rise enough to reverse last year's first-ever net trade deficit in computer hardware. America's manufacturing resurgence is another bonanza, since the sector consumes about 25% of total U.S. computer output. Partly because of the chip shortage, sales for the U.S.-based PC industry will grow about 20% this year, a rate that seems lamentable only when compared with last year's 28% to 30%. Caffery expects the scarcity to lessen by early 1989, and sales to rise a bit faster than this year.

-- TELECOMMUNICATIONS: The year of the long ball. With revenues growing at an annual rate of 8% to 9%, the fractious players in the long-distance fraternity are in for a good year or two. MCI is reaping the payoff from heavy capital spending. Earnings will more than double this year, says analyst Joel Gross of Donaldson Lufkin-Jenrette. US Sprint, ahead in fiber-optic technology but behind on the cost curve, should finally break even late in 1989. Both companies have gained at the expense of AT&T, but weep not for Ma Bell: She still has 72% of the market and has found she can save plenty by cutting costs. Earnings this year and next should rise 10% to 12%. The equally scrappy Baby Bells continue to diversify. Revenues will grow about 5% this year and next, says Gross, and earnings should rise 6%.

-- INDUSTRIAL EQUIPMENT: Full steam ahead. The long years of Job-like suffering are over. Capital spending is strong; orders will be up 8% to 10% this year, and 5% to 8% next. Many heavy-goods manufacturers are operating near capacity, says Steven Colbert, a vice president at Prudential-Bache, and winning both domestic and overseas markets back from foreign competitors. The cheering statistics are multiplied down the income statement: Revenues should grow 10% to 15% and earnings 20% to 30% in 1988; both will slow modestly in 1989. Heavy-truck builders, which turned around early, continue to roll. Orders are coming in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 180,000, close to the historic high. Machine tool sales are likely to increase a powerful 60% to 80% this year, says David Sutliff of Salomon Brothers. The drought may steal sales from farm equipment makers, but they will still have their best year since 1979.

-- PAPER: Flying. ''Pick any superlative you like. We're running fantastically,'' exults Benjamin Slatin, chief economist for the American Paper Institute. The industry will grow as fast as it can add capacity -- about 2.5% this year and next. Price increases should boost earnings handsomely; the industry lifted many prices 6% to 8% in early spring and plans further raises in midsummer. Mark S. Rogers, an analyst for Prudential-Bache Securities, predicts -- ''conservatively'' -- a profit surge of 47% this year and about 14% more in 1989. Output per man-hour increased 5% in the first four months, and this productive industry keeps driving ahead as if it were Japanese. The industry will spend more than 10% of sales this year and next on plant and equipment, plowing a record $11.4 billion back into the business.

-- CHEMICALS: Capacity crunch. As customers at home and abroad clamor for more, operating rates are pushing 87%, and supplies of basics such as ethylene are running low. While that's good news in the short run for profit margins, by 1989 production will be constrained. Richard Stuckey, Du Pont's chief economist, expects output to rise 6% this year, matching the 1987 gain, but just 2% or 3% in 1989. Several manufacturers plan capacity additions, but none will come onstream before late next year. After bubbling up by 40% last year and 36% the year before, says William Young of Drexel Burnham Lambert, operating earnings will rise 30% in 1988 and about half that in 1989.

-- STEEL: Forging ahead. It's finally apt that bells are made of steel -- the industry has cause to celebrate. With no recession in sight, a near decade of painful restructuring will continue paying off handsomely. Even exports are heating up. Operating earnings in the first quarter were the highest of the 1980s and show no sign of dropping. Imports, the steelmakers' bane, are down from about 30% of the U.S. market in late 1984 to around 21% today, courtesy of both the lower dollar and well-enforced import quotas. At the same time, productivity growth has been smashing. A ton of steel that took 10.1 man-hours to produce in 1982 can now be made in less than six. Shipments this year will total at least 77 million tons, more than most analysts expected six months ago. Recent price increases will keep profits up -- and prices have room to rise further. Says James Rudolph, an analyst with New York's Buckingham Research Group: ''Even without adjusting for inflation, average steel prices are 10% to 15% below their level of 1979-80.''

-- OIL: Sticky. OPEC's enduring inability to control its members' production continues to depress prospects and spirits in the oil patch. U.S. demand is growing a scant 1% a year. Barring shocks, crude prices will keep bouncing around but should average between $15 and $18 per barrel through the end of next year, says Lawrence Goldstein, executive vice president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation. Those prices will pinch exploration and production companies, drillers, and well-servicing firms, already decimated by the depressed market of 1986. But the major oil producers are sanguine. Refining and chemical manufacturing now account for half their earnings. Demand is strong in both sectors, particularly for gasoline, diesel fuel, and jet fuel. William Randol, senior oil analyst at First Boston, expects profits for the majors to rise 15% in 1988 and 5% next year.

-- AIRLINES: Gaining altitude. Traffic growth will slow to 5%, half the 1987 rate, but so what? The bottom line is soaring. George James, president of the Airline Economics consulting firm, foresees record operating profits of $2.5 billion or more for the industry in 1988 and 1989. Says he: ''They're not going to be bell-ringing years compared with the rest of American industry, but for airlines they're good.'' Fare wars have subsided, allowing managements to raise ticket prices about 3% last year and 5% this year and concentrate on cutting costs. The biggest problem on the horizon: crowding at overburdened airports. Short term, the effects will look good as ticket prices rise still more to reflect tight supply, says Daniel Kasper, transportation analyst for Boston's Harbridge House consultancy. ''But angry customers are bad news long term, both in revenues and good will.''

-- TRUCKING: Shifting up. A round of rate increases this spring and summer should help truckers haul themselves out of the low-margin rut they have been stuck in since they were deregulated in 1980. ''It's a year of recovery,'' says Michael Galardi, head motor vehicle consultant at Temple Barker & Sloane. Volume should grow at about the same pace as GNP, but earnings will rise faster, partly because 1987 was such an abysmal year. John G. Larkin, of the Baltimore investment firm Alex. Brown & Sons, expects the better-managed companies to raise earnings by 20% to 30% this year and next.

-- UTILITIES: A dim glow. Electricity demand is finally picking up. After two years of dismal growth, sales rose 4.5% in 1987, mainly because of heavy industrial consumption. Sales in the first quarter were up at an annual rate of 5.9%, well above expected GNP growth for the year. FORTUNE estimates that growth will remain strong through 1989, outpacing Department of Energy forecasts of 2.3%. Even so, excess capacity continues to dog the industry, save in parts of the ^ Northeast. The burden carries a double penalty: Since utilities have piled up cash instead of building new plants, state regulators have been cutting allowed rates of return. As a result, earnings should be flat for the next 18 months. ''Current operating revenues don't support the dividends investors have come to expect,'' says Raymond Moore, utilities analyst at Nikko Securities International. ''The days of holding the stocks because of safety are history.''

-- BANKING: Going for the green. Economic growth looks assured, and spreads are widening -- for example, the difference between the prime rate and what banks pay for money market accounts has risen from 2.2% early in 1987 to 3.18%. Banks are also emulating industrial America, cutting costs and shedding unprofitable operations. Irwin Kellner, chief economist for Manufacturers Hanover, says his experience is typical: ''No function is now undertaken at our shop unless the benefits clearly outweigh the costs.'' The best news is no new bad news: Latin American loan problems have stopped growing worse each quarter. Leaving aside the distortions caused by last year's write-downs and reserves against those loans, James McDermott, the top researcher with Keefe Bruyette & Woods, projects a 15% average 1988 increase in earnings for money center banks. Regional banks, whose overseas troubles were milder, should gain 13% or 14%. McDermott expects next year to be nearly as good.