By Shawn Langlois

SAN FRANCISCO (Dow Jones) -- Danaher Corp. on Monday reported a lower fourth-quarter profit but its shares rose almost 9% as the results still topped Wall Street's targets.

At last check, Danaher's(DHR) stock was up $4.48 at $55.83. It's still down 26% over the past year.

"The dramatic downturn in the global economy in the latter part of 2008 negatively impacted a number of our businesses, our end markets and our customers," CEO H. Lawrence Culp said in a statement.

The diversified manufacturing company, which makes Craftsman tools, said profit fell nearly 5% to $306 million, or 92 cents a share, from $320 million, or 97 cents a share, a year ago.

Excluding one-time items, such as restructuring charges of around 18 cents a share, earnings would have come in at $1.11 a share while sales from continuing operations for the Washington-based company inched 1% higher to $3.18 billion

Analysts polled by FactSet Research were looking for a profit, on average, of $1.04 a share with total revenue of $3.13 billion.

Danaher said it expects 2009 to be a "difficult year" but did not offer specific financial targets.

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