Here Come the Earnings Disappointments
Weak results from industrial bellwether Fastenal suggest investors may not be cautious enough on coming results.
Fastenal: First in fasteners, and one of the first to disappoint with earnings.
Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg
There’s no denying the slowdown in U.S. manufacturing now.
Fastenal Co., a distributor of factory odds and ends, reported second-quarter results that disappointed on almost every level, even in a market that was primed for disappointments. Earnings per share missed analysts’ estimates; it was the biggest quarterly gross margin shortfall in more than five years; and daily sales growth for the quarter was the weakest since the first period in 2017. Analysts had hoped that a slower April was just a temporary blip, and they were encouraged in that thinking by a rebound in Fastenal’s May sales data. It now appears the downward trend is more permanent and marked.