Why FedEx is a bellwether for the global economy
FedEx just reported its latest earnings numbers, right in the middle of the holiday shipping season. And while the company says it expects to ship a record number of packages this season, it also announced that it’s cutting earnings estimates for the year by around 10 percent.
On the company’s earnings call, FedEx CEO Fred Smith said “bad political choices” underly the company’s current problems. Examples he gave include Britain’s exit from the European Union, the “immigration crisis in Germany” and the tariffs imposed by the United States.
“You just go down the list, and they are all things that have created macroeconomic slowdowns,” he said.
As it turns out, shipping companies like FedEx can offer a lot of early clues on what the economy is facing now and in the future.
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