Fastenal Company FAST is a national wholesale distributor of industrial and construction supplies. It distributes its products through company-owned stores mostly located in North America. The company has gradually grown from a fastener distributor to a full-line industrial supplier.
After struggling in 2013, Fastenal’s top line turned around in 2014 as underlying markets improved, vending revamped, sales improvement efforts yielded results and comparisons eased. However, sales slowed down again in 2015 due to currency headwinds, lower sales from oil & gas industry, severe weather conditions and overall weakness in industrial economy. Moreover, Fastenal’s gross margins are contracting as management’s focus shifts toward top-line improvement.
Investors should also note the recent earnings estimate revisions for FAST, as the consensus estimate has been moving downwards. Moreover, FAST has a mixed history in earnings season. Fastenal has delivered in line earnings results in two of the last four quarters, making for an average positive surprise of 1.13%.
Currently, FAST has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), but that could definitely change following Fastenal’s earnings report which was just released. We have highlighted some of the key stats from this just-revealed announcement below:
Earnings: FAST beat on earnings. Our consensus earnings estimate called for EPS of $0.46/share, and the company reported EPS of $0.47. Investors should note that these figures take out stock option expenses.
Revenues: FAST reported revenues of $995.3 million. This missed our consensus estimate of $1.005 billion.
Key Stats to Note: Fastenal’s total average daily sales growth rate was 1.5%, much less than 14.3% in the prior-year quarter.
Share price: In-active in pre-market trading.
Check back later for our full write up on this FAST earnings report later!
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