Industrials

Did Honeywell Guidance Just Jeopardize Conglomerates or Industrials?

Jon C. Ogg

Published: October 6, 2016 6:09 pm

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 2:41 am

Honeywell International Inc. (NYSE: HON) is one of the largest conglomerates out there, but it is often overlooked as a broad economic indicator like some of the companies. Maybe its $88 billion market cap just isn’t big enough these days in the world where companies need to have $100 billion market capitalization rates to be megacaps.

24/7 Wall St. cannot help but wonder if Honeywell may have just inadvertently wrecked the story for many industrial and conglomerate outfits after lowering guidance. The good news here is that Honeywell’s guidance looks limited to Honeywell, but we took a look at General Electric, Boeing and United Tech just to be sure.

Honeywell has now lowered 2016 sales and earnings forecast for 2016, in part due to the aerospace and Space & Defense divisions seeing lower shipments. The separation of automation and control solutions into two new segments and the overall impact of acquisitions and divestitures was also cited — the acquisition of Intelligrated, sale of the Honeywell Technology Solutions, and the spin-off of Resins and Chemicals as AdvanSix.

Earnings per share (EPS) for 2016 was lowered to a range of $6.60 to $6.64 (a gain of 8% to 9%) versus a prior range of $6.60 to $6.70. That doesn’t look too bad, but what hurts here is that Honeywell now sees its organic revenues dropping from 1% to 2% in 2016. Its prior estimate was a 1% drop.

Investors might feel as though they were caught off guard here. It was a month ago when the AdvanSix spin-off was set. Things seemed normal then. After closing up 0.3% at $115.61 on Thursday, Honeywell shares were last seen trading down 3.9% at $111.05 — but only 30,000 shares or so had traded at 5:50 p.m. Eastern time.

On October 4, Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) announced that its 2016 gross orders were now 460, showing a change of −80 units, for some 380 net orders. Boeing has exposure for both defense and aerospace. Its shares closed down 0.18% at $134.42, but they were not seen moving in the after-hours.

General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) closed down almost 0.8% at $29.27 on Thursday, after an analyst lowered its price target by $1.00. Its after-hours range was not lower either, with a 52-week range of $27.10 to $33.00. GE has exposure to aerospace and as a conglomerate.

United Technologies Corp. (NYSE: UTX), which was not that long ago considered a Honeywell merger partner, closed down 0.17% at $102.08. Its market cap is $85 billion, and its shares have a 52-week range of $83.39 to $109.83. Earlier Thursday, UTX said that it was reducing its pension obligations, but it will take a charge in the range of $400 million to $530 million.

If you saw the headlines on Honeywell, then you might be more worried. After looking at the fallout and looking at the statements, the spillover and fallout doesn’t look too extreme. Stay tuned as Friday’s unemployment and payrolls report could skew how this guidance fallout impacts other companies.