Expeditors sees 11% earnings gain in Q3

The company said solid results were due in part to big gains in ocean cargo and air freight volumes.    Expeditors International finished the third quarter with net earnings of $102.38 million, an 11-percent, year-over-year increase.
   Over the first three quarters of the year, earnings rose 5 percent.
   Net revenues rose during the quarter by 6 percent to $513.24 million.
   Jeffrey S. Musser, president and chief executive officer of Expeditors, said double-digit growth for air freight and ocean freight volumes, which hasn’t been accomplished for nearly four years, drove the solid third-quarter results.
   “Firmer ocean pricing offset tightening margins in airfreight while customs brokerage and other services benefited commensurately with air and ocean volume increases,” he stated. “We experienced strong operating income growth in both the United States and Europe regions, which again compensated for relative weakness in the Asia Pacific and Middle East and India regions.”
   Even with the results, which Musser said “have given us a great deal of confidence,” he doesn’t want to predict too much future growth. He noted that new product launches and consumer demand helped third-quarter results; the fourth quarter will have a different dynamic, he said.
   “As we’ve said for years, trying to predict trends in these very fast changing air and ocean freight markets is futile,” he said. “While heartened by the strength of ocean freight in the third quarter, so much of how the fourth quarter will turn out will depend on circumstances that are still playing out in the airfreight markets. Airfreight pricing is still very volatile.”
   According to Stifel, Expeditors will be looking to expand in the Asia-Europe trade, which the analyst firm said has been largely ignored until now. Stifel also noted that the third-quarter results are better than expected.