FedEx Posts Flat Quarterly Results

FedEx (FDX Quote) posted third-quarter earnings Wednesday that beat Wall Street estimates by a penny, and projected that fourth-quarter earnings would be essentially unchanged from a year ago.

The package delivery company earned $109 million, or 37 cents a share, compared with $113 million, or 37 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Seventeen analysts surveyed by First Call/Thomson Financial estimated, on average, that FedEx would earn 36 cents a share.

FedEx reported revenue of $4.8 billion, up from $4.5 billion in the year-ago period.

As with many other companies, the deteriorating market hit FedEx harder than expected. Volume growth, yield growth and weights for February took a considerable drop, executives said.

In the fourth quarter, FedEx said it expects to earn between 85 cents and 90 cents a share. The current First Call estimate is 85 cents a share, which is what FedEx earned in fourth quarter of 2000. The company said it also expects to see a 1% to 2% decline in U.S. domestic express package volume, but ground and international priority volumes will grow 5% to 7%.

Shares of FedEx were down 50 cents, or 1.2%, to $39.75 in recent New York Stock Exchange trading.