What Investors Want From FedEx
By: Following FedEx's earnings miss, one analyst told CNBC he sees signs of encouragement that the company plans to scale back its more expensive air freight business.
"It sounds like incrementally today we're going to get more aircraft retirements coming out of the fleet," said Brandon Oglenski, a transportation analyst at Barclays. "That's going to be good for their cost structure, and we're seeing quite a bit of ecommerce growth domestically in the U.S."
Last quarter, the company's ecommerce traffic helped increase its SmartPost division's average daily volume while its ground business ticked 10 percent higher, Oglenski told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street."
The package-delivery company has been gaining share in the lower-value, longer-shipment business—a trend that Oglenski thinks investors are excited about.
Still, FedEx has not given up on the idea that it needs a "lot of aircraft for overnight delivery—be it domestically or in China," Oglenski said.
"That's where they've really been struggling, so I think investors are looking for them to get a little bit more aggressive on reducing costs in their express network, and we did hear that incrementally from the company today so I'm encouraged that we're moving in that direction," he added.
Following FedEx's earnings report, its shares fell about 7 percent in trade on Wednesday.
Although Oglenski has a $120 price target, more than 20 percent above its current price, and "overweight" ratting, he described the current environment as very challenging.
"I know the market's been very optimistic on transports year to date, but what we're seeing is the retail economy just isn't doing that well, and that's not a good read-through for air- freight markets so FedEx is having a very tough go of it here over the near term," he said.
—By CNBC.com's Katie Little; Follow on Twitter @Katie_Little_
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Additional Views: Cramer on FedEx Earnings
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Disclosures:
Disclosure information was not available for Brandon Oglenski.
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