M. Wolfe Ups Quotations

I think FedEx's stock will be under a little bit of pressure, because UPS will be comparing and contrasting numbers. UPS saw volume growth of 14.5 percent on overnight product in the most recent quarter. FDX saw only 3.9 percent. It's too early to tell if UPS is taking away market share, but that will be the implication that comes out on the road show.

We have noted in the past that our third-quarter earnings per share estimate of 47 cents (versus First Call consensus of 57 cents) would probably be too low if UPS settled early and a second round of freight diversion did not occur, ... As a result of last night's announcement, we will likely be raising our third-quarter EPS estimate in the next few days, once we get better visibility about some details of the contract.

We are rating UPS 'attractive,' ... Our price target on this stock is $70; it's at about $56 right now.

We don't anticipate any impact on the stock. While Kelly has been both an important and strong leader as well as a terrific man, UPS is a large company with great management depth run by committee.

This will be very positive for UPS over the long term. This is not material to earnings per share during the next few years, but over time it will be an important growth engine. It is also important to UPS because of the validation of the political time and effort they spent in winning support on Capital Hill for these slots.

This will be very positive for UPS over the long term, ... This is not material to earnings per share during the next few years, but over time it will be an important growth engine.  It is also important to UPS because of the validation of the political time and effort they spent in winning support on Capital Hill for these slots.

There will be relatively few shares sold, ... And UPS still has $1 billion left over from the IPO to repurchase shares on the open market to support the price if need be.

Our sense is that the rejection was more a statement of employee sentiment in the airline industry rather than a statement regarding overall labor relations between UPS and the Teamsters. However, we believe UPS would want to put this contract to bed before focusing on the national Teamster contract.

Once again, UPS reported stronger-than-expected volume growth but was not able to leverage that growth into strong upside margin improvement, as yields continued to decelerate.

If volumes are flat, which is what both FedEx and UPS warned a couple of weeks ago, there's no way shippers are going to pay it, ... It's very pie in the sky. Unless they're going to shrink their business, there's no way they'll get that rate.

Clearly, further weakening in domestic express and international volumes is not a good sign for UPS as well.

The earnings implications are probably immaterial, but perception of UPS as a new economy supply chain information provider is real.