Deere has earned more than expected for 10 consecutive quarters.
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Deere reported fiscal second-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street expectations. Full-year earnings guidance was raised too. The stock fell anyway on Friday.
Deere (ticker: DE) reported earnings per share of $6.81 from sales of $13.4 billion. Wall Street was looking for EPS of $6.69 from about $13.2 billion in sales. A year earlier, Deere earned $5.68 a share from $12 billion in sales.
Deere shares fell 4.8% in premarket trading to about $347. S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were up about 1.2% and 0.9%, respectively. Coming into Friday trading, Deere stock has gained about 6% this year.
It looks like a solid earnings report. Pricing, for instance, in Deere’s agricultural division rose 13% year over year. Operating profit margins in the segment, however, declined by almost 2 percentage points to about 20%. Still, overall profit margins in Deere’s equipment segments — which include construction and small agricultural equipment — rose about 0.4% year over year.
The stock is down perhaps because investors always expect good news from Deere. The quarterly results have now beaten Wall Street’s bottom-line estimates for 11 consecutive quarters now. That goes back to the middle of 2019, before the pandemic. That isn’t bad for a company that is more affected by commodity prices than most.
Looking ahead, full-year earnings guidance looks to have risen by about $100 million on a comparable basis. Deere now expects to earn about $7.2 billion in its fiscal year. The outlook given during its first-quarter earnings report called for $6.9 billion in net income. The new figure, however, appears to include a $220 gain. Wall Street projects about $7 billion in net income for Deere’s fiscal year.
Earnings in Deere’s lending unit are expected to decline a little in 2022 because of higher provision for credit losses and higher expenses. That is one negative from the earnings report.
Management hosts a earnings conference call at 10 a.m. Eastern. Investors will want to hear more about inflation and its impact on farmers as well as Deere’s profit margins.
Prices for farm inputs such as fertilizer have risen and Deere will be boosting its prices too to offset rising costs. That makes things more difficult for farmers. Yet prices for wheat, corn, and soybeans — products that generate sales for farmers— are stronger as well, up about 57%, 32% and 25% year to date, respectively.
Options markets imply the stock will move about 7%, up or down, following earnings. That would be more than in recent quarters. Deere stock has moved an average of roughly 3%, up or down, over the past four quarterly reports.
Earnings have beaten analysts’ estimates each of the past four reports. Shares have gone up twice and down twice.
Write to Al Root at [email protected]
