24/7 Wall St. » GWR

Railroad Traffic Continues Decline on Lack of Coal Shipments (GWR, CSX, UNP, NSC, KSU)

Paul Ausick — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 12:10:28 +0000

Genesee & Wyoming Inc. (NYSE: GWR) this morning released its traffic volume report for March and for the first quarter of 2012. The news is not good, but it’s also not unexpected.

The company’s traffic in March was down -13.6% year-over-year and down -9.2% for the quarter compared with the same period a year ago. CSX Corp. (NYSE: CSX), Union Pacific Corp. (NYSE: UNP), Norfolk Southern Corp. (NYSE: NSC), and Kansas City Southern (NYSE: KSU) have not released numbers yet, but CSX and Union Pacific report quarterly earnings next week so we should know more then.

The decline at Genesee is virtually entirely due to a -42.7% drop in coal shipments in March and a -41.7% drop in coal shipments for the quarter. According to the Association of American Railroads’ latest traffic report, year-to-date coal shipments are down -10.2% on US railroads.

That’s not the largest percentage drop among freight types, but coal represents the largest volume of traffic on the nation’s railroads. US railroads have hauled nearly 200,000 fewer carloads of coal this year than they did last year. Put this down to the lowest natural gas prices in a decade.

The big gainer is petroleum products, which has risen 28.7% year-to-date, to nearly 120,000 carloads, up from about 93,000 a year ago. This is the effect of rail shipments from the Bakken shale fields of North Dakota and Montana, where there isn’t enough pipeline capacity to transport the oil to markets. But the total number is barely 10% of the coal volume.

Genesee’s shares closed up about 2.5% yesterday at $53.55 in a 52-week range of $44.38-$66.83. Shares are inactive in the pre-market this morning.

Paul Ausick

Filed under: Commodities, Transports Tagged: CSX, GWR, KSU, NSC, UNP

Top 10 Pre-Market Analyst Calls (AMT, CCI, SBAC, BEAV, GWR, HOLX, SWY, KNOT, MDCO, UBS, VCLK)

247wallst — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 07:23:01 +0000

Below are the top 10 pre-market analyst we are looking at this Thursday morning:

American Tower (NYSE: AMT), Crown Castle (NYSE: CCI), and SBA Communications (NASDAQ: SBAC) all initiated as BUY at Jefferies.
Baidu.com (NASDAQ: BIDU) raised to Outperform at RBC Capital.
BE Aerospace (NASDAQ: BEAV) downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS.
Gennesee & Wyoming (NYSE: GWR) raised to Outperform at Bear Stearns.
Hologic (NASDAQ: HOLX) started as Buy at Sun Trust Robinson Humphrey.
Safeway (NYSE: SWY) raised to Neutral from Sell at UBS.
The Knot (NASDAQ: KNOT) downgraded to Neutral at JPMorgan.
The Medicines Co. (NASDAQ: MDCO) raised to Buy from Hold at Citigroup.
UBS (NYSE: UBS) downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank.
ValueClick (NASDAQ: VCLK) raised to Outperform at Robert W. Baird.

Jon C. Ogg
February 14, 2008

Pre-Market Stock News (July 13, 2007)

247wallst — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 07:22:02 +0000

(AA) Alcoa may now be in play according to research notes since it withdrew Alcan bid.
(APA) Apache may go to $100.00 and then trade up to $120.00 according to Cramer.
(BHI) Baker Hughes put Q2 2007 EPS at $1.07 to $1.09, down from $1.17 last quarter due to deterioration of activity and profitability in Canada.
(CHINA) CDC Corp intends to offer up to $200 million of CDC Games in an IPO.
(DYAX) Dyax priced a 10.5M share stock offering atr $3.67 per share.
(EVST) Everlast BOD was sent a letter by Aquamarine Capital Management urging it to maximize shareholder value.
(GE) General Electric $0.52 EPS vs $0.52e; revenues ahead of estimates and increased shares under buyback; selling sub-prime unit.
(GWR) Genessee & Wyoming said rail carloads fell 7% to 67,165 carloads.
(IDIX) Idenix Pharma says Valopicitabine development program placed on clinical hold in the United States.
(PYX) Playtex Products being acquired by Energizer Holdings.
(XING) Qiao Xing will file annual report on July 16.

Jon C. Ogg
July 13, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Pre-Market Stock News (June 13, 2007)

247wallst — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 06:51:11 +0000

(AOB) American Oriental enters into a letter-of-intent to acquire an established plant based pharmaceutical company named Changchun Xinan Pharmaceutical Group for up to $30 million.
(CEN) Ceridian largest shareholder says the private equity buyout is underpriced.
(EBAY) eBay is still in court over this MercExchange LLC patent over its “Buy It Now” patent.
(F) Ford confirmed that it is reviewing sales of Jaguar and Rover; Goldman Sachs and others hired.
(GWR) Genesee & Wyoming reported a total carload decrease of 0.3%.
(GYI) Getty Images announced it has filed its 10-K for 2006.
(HS) Healthspring lowered guidance.
(LWSN) Lawson Software raised guidance to $0.05 to $0.07 EPS vs $0.04e.
(MAGS) Magal Security announced a new strategic partnership in Brazil for services providers.
(PAY) VeriFone Holdings announced it has been selected as the sole provider of electronic payment systems by the China Postal Savings Bank.
(POR) Portland General Electric announced the pricing of a 21 million share secondary at $26.00; seller is Enron Disputed Claims Reserve.
(SAPE) Sapient $0.07 EPS vs $0.01+e.
(SHLM) A. Schulman lowered guidance.
(SNY) Sanofi-Aventis diet drug all in one pill is being reviewed; already marketed as Acomplia in other countries.
(SSYS) Stratasys will replace LSS on S&P Small Cap 600 Index on June 14.
(TYC) Tyco will take a $500 Million pre-tax and $370 million after tax impairment charge for the sale of its Power Systems business.
(VLCM) Volcom will replace PXR on the S&P Small Cap 600 Index on June 15.

Jon C. Ogg
June 13, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.