C.H. Robinson Falls Most in S&P 500 After Profit Miss

C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc., an arranger of freight shipments, led declines on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index after posting lower quarterly profit than analysts estimated.

C.H. Robinson tumbled 9.9 percent to $60.41 at 11:41 a.m. in New York. An earlier decline of 10.2 percent was the biggest on an intraday basis since October 2011.

The logistics company’s fourth-quarter profit, excluding purchases and divestitures, was 68 cents a share. That missed the 70-cent average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg and spurred at least two analysts to cut their ratings on the Eden Prairie, Minnesota-based company.

C.H. Robinson is grappling with “increased competition from rapidly expanding high-quality competitors,” John Larkin, a Baltimore-based analyst at Stifel Financial Corp. with a sell rating on the shares, wrote in a note today. “The company will suffer from the law of large numbers and post unimpressive” earnings growth.

To contact the reporter on this story: Brooke Sutherland in New York at bsutherland7@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Ed Dufner at edufner@bloomberg.net