Oil-by-rail boom spurs CN

Article Excerpt

CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAY CO. $58 (Toronto symbol CNR; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 836.0 million; Market cap: $48.5 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 4.6; Dividend yield: 1.5%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.cn.ca) operates Canada’s largest railway. Its 32,350- kilometre network stretches across the country and through the U.S. Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico. Manufacturers are shipping more goods by rail, thanks to the improving North American economy. At the same time, a lack of pipeline capacity is prompting oil producers to ship more of their product by train. As a result, CN’s earnings rose 9.0% in the three months ended September 30, 2013, to $724 million from $664 million a year earlier. Due to fewer shares outstanding, earnings per share gained 13.2%, to $0.86 from $0.76 (all per-share amounts adjusted for a 2-for-1 stock split in December 2013). Revenue rose 9.0%, to $2.7 billion from $2.5 billion. CN reported revenue gains from shipping petroleum (up 16.6%), intermodal…