What to Expect From FedEx Earnings

This top transport company may be eyeing a solid holiday season as falling gasoline prices boost consumers’ cash. FedEx provides transportation, e-commerce and business services in the United States and internationally. The company’s FedEx Express segment provides various shipping services for the delivery of packages and freight. The FedEx Ground segment provides business and residential money-back guaranteed ground package delivery services and consolidates and delivers high volumes of low-weight and less time-sensitive business-to-consumer packages. The FedEx Freight segment offers less-than-truckload freight services, as well as freight-shipping services.

During its fiscal first quarter, FedEx placed an order with Boeing for 50 additional 767-300F freighters. At a list price of $199.3 million per plane the order is worth $9.97 billion. FedEx also has placed an option on another 50 of the planes.

FedEx has a total fleet of 408 planes, of which 91 are Airbus A300s and A310s and most of the rest are Boeing jets. FedEx continues to operate 106 McDonnell-Douglas DC-10s and MD-11s, as well as 114 Boeing 757-200s, all of which are long out of production. The company currently includes 26 767-300s in its fleet and has another 35 on order, according to Planespotters.net.

A few analysts weighed in on FedEx ahead of its earnings report:

• Robert Baird lowered its price target to $195 from $200.
• Deutsche Bank has a Buy rating but lowered its price target to $206 from $216.
• Citigroup reiterated a Buy rating.

So far in 2015 FedEx shares have underperformed the market. They are down over 12% year to date though shares are only down 0.4% in the past 52-weeks.

Shares of FedEx were down 0.8% at $149.86 on Monday afternoon. The stock has a consensus analyst price target of $194.88 and a 52-week trading range of $130.13 to $185.19.