While the company easily beat very modest expectations, the year-over-year drop in revenues and profits continues to grow. For the first six months of Deere’s fiscal year, net sales have dropped from $16.2 billion a year ago to $13 billion, and EPS is down from $4.46 in the first half of fiscal 2014 to $3.14 this year. Net income is down from $1.66 billion to $1.08 billion, a drop of around 35%.
The company’s CEO said:
John Deere’s second-quarter results were noteworthy in light of the weak conditions that continue to affect the global agricultural sector. … Deere’s construction and forestry and financial-services divisions had higher results for the quarter, and our agriculture and turf operations remained solidly profitable despite lower demand for large models of farm machinery. We also saw benefits from our success developing a more responsive cost and asset structure, a fact that gives our performance a greater degree of resilience.
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The company’s outlook has not improved since Deere reported first-quarter results. Equipment sales are forecast to fall by 19% for the full year and to be down by about 17% in the third quarter. The strong dollar will chop 4% from company totals in the quarter and 6% for the year. Net income for the year is forecast at around $1.9 billion.
The forecast for net income is better than the $1.8 billion the company forecast at the end of the first quarter, but the currency exchange impact is worse than the previous estimate of 3% for the full year. In the second quarter, currency exchange effects cost Deere 5% of total sales.
Shares of Deere traded up about 1.7% in the premarket Friday to $91.00. The 52-week range is $78.88 to $93.78. Thomson Reuters had a consensus analyst price target of around $85.20 before the report.
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