Good news. Deere stock drops from $1.41 to $0.96 a share.
How can that be good news? Well, for Wall Street it is. It's like Deere got beaten to a pulp in a ball game, but at least they beat the spread.
Deere's fourth-quarter earnings slid 35% from last year, as modest decline in sales combined with a program to scale back manufacturing volume.
The farm and construction equipment maker earned $232.8 million, or 96 cents a share, in the quarter, compared with $356.7 million, or $1.41 a share, last year. Net sales fell 3% to $4.49 billion. Analysts had been forecasting earnings of 79 cents a share on sales of $4.53 billion, according to Thomson First Call.
In its equipment division, operating earnings were $224 million in the latest quarter, down from $449 million a year ago. Deere cited lower manufacturing volume and shipments in its agricultural division and higher warranty costs. On a reported basis, equipment sales in the U.S. and Canada declined 2% in the quarter.
posted by The Inside Dope @ 11/22/2005
2 comments
2 Comments:
I know from personal experience that, beginning many years ago, Deere jumped on the trend to eliminate union jobs and farm them out to temp agencies.
It was all good... for everyone except the canned union workers and those whose businesses were patronized by them... and of course their kids wives, etc.
So what was once a job at say, their Parts Distribution Warehouse in Milan, paying close to $20/hr with benefits, was now being handled by Export Packageing, who hired people from Manpower and paid them $6/hr with zero benefits.
They'd con them by holding out the promise that, if they worked VERY hard, that after 90 days or so, they might be picked up by the company and become a "real" employee.
Well, you can guess how many made it past their 90 days. About zero, to be exact. But they'd be going crazy trying to make their piece work goals thinking they'd get that job.
And as the job involved a lot of fine work with finger and hands, carpal tunnel was epidemic.
And if a worker ever so much as mentioned the word carpal tunnel to any supervisor, they were out the door within days.
The turnover was incredible, about every few weeks it would be an entirely new workforce. They'd take 'em in, wear 'em out, and fire 'em, with about a third having developed carpal tunnel in the process, but forget paying for medical care.
And the temp service got $6 an hour for every one of these poor chumps, and Deere saves a bunch.
As I said, everyone's happy, because they figured out a way to use and abuse workers and put more money in their own pockets.
You are correct Big Boy.
Word is that the big temp agencies in town are owned by direct Deere decendants -- imagine that? These are the same boys who grew up with access to the priviledged Tish Hewitt horse "farm" that is now the TPD Deere golf course.
Ins't export pack also Group O? If so, then a local minority guy and his family are getting rich off these temps daily.
Also, the John Deere Insurance company has followed that exact same model. I temped for the Insurance for a while and was fed that same line of bull. I decided a few months of their nonesense was enough already.
Post a Comment
<< Home