FedEx has two big advantages

Article Excerpt

Businesses and consumers are shipping more packages as the economy improves. That’s helping FedEx and Arkansas Best. However, we prefer FedEx because of its larger international focus. It also uses fewer unionized workers. FEDEX CORP. $94 (New York symbol FDX; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 315.0 million; Market cap: $29.6 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.8: Dividend yield: 0.5%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.fedex.com) delivers packages and documents in the U.S. and over 220 countries. Its fleet of 80,000 trucks and 684 aircraft delivers over 8 million packages a day. In FedEx’s 2011 second quarter, which ended November 30, 2010, the company earned $283 million, or $0.89 a share. That’s down 18.0% from $345 million, or $1.10 a share, a year earlier. However, if you exclude one-time charges, earnings per share would have risen 5.5% in the latest quarter, to $1.16. Revenue rose 12.1%, to $9.6 billion from $8.6 billion. On January 31, 2011, FedEx plans to combine its ground-delivery and less-than-truckload units in…