Lamb Weston Holdings
stock was soaring Thursday after the frozen potato products maker boosted its fiscal-year outlook. Cleaning products maker
Clorox,
in contrast, was sinking after issuing a dismal forecast following an August cyberattack.
Lamb Weston
(ticker: LW) said Thursday that it now expects fiscal 2024 earnings of between $5.47 and $5.92 a share, compared with prior estimates of $4.95 to $5.40 a share. The french fry maker said it anticipates sales of between $6.8 billion and $7 billion, compared with previous guidance of $6.7 billion to $6.9 billion.
“We raised our earnings target for the year to reflect our performance in the quarter, as well as the current solid demand and pricing environment,” Chief Executive Tom Werner said in a press release.
Lamb Weston reported fiscal first-quarter earnings of $1.63 a share on revenue of $1.67 billion, beating analysts’ consensus of profit of $1.08 a share on revenue of $1.62 billion. Sales increased 48% from the same period last year, and were boosted by a 23% increase in price/mix, the company said.
Shares of Lamb Weston were surging 8.4% to $98.13 and were on pace for their largest percentage increase since Jan. 5, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The stock has now climbed 9.8% this year and was the best performer in the
S&P 500
on Thursday.
Clorox
(CLX), another consumer facing company, was having a much worse day.
The maker of disinfectant wipes said in a press release late Wednesday that it expects net sales for the fiscal first quarter, which ended on Sept. 30, to decrease between 23% and 28% from a year earlier.
Clorox
also anticipates fiscal first-quarter adjusted earnings of flat or down 40 cents a share.
“This is due to the impacts of the recent cybersecurity attack that was disclosed in August, which caused wide-scale disruption of Clorox’s operations, including order processing delays and significant product outages,” the company said.
Raymond James analyst Olivia Tong downgraded shares of Clorox to Market Perform from Outperform and removed her $185 price target on the stock.
“While CLX noted that shipment and consumption were in-line with their expectations prior to the attack, we expect that the company will need time to ramp and rebuild the pipeline, which could result in continued loss of sales at retail and eventually, a need to increase promotion to regain lost market share,” Tong wrote in a research note.
Shares of Clorox were tumbling 8.5% to $120.65 and were on pace for their lowest close since June 2018 and largest percentage decrease since February 2022. The stock has now dropped 14% this year and was the worst performer in the S&P 500 on Thursday.
Write to Angela Palumbo at [email protected]
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