Their essential services fuel your gains

Article Excerpt

FedEx and Cintas have soared in the past few months, even though the shutdown of businesses due to COVID-19 hurt their short-term earnings. That’s because demand for their services will rebound as the economy reopens, particularly as they help businesses cope with the pandemic. FEDEX CORP. $216 is a buy. The company (New York symbol FDX; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares o/s: 262.0 million; Market cap: $56.6 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.8; Dividend yield: 1.2%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.fedex.com) delivers packages and documents in the U.S. and 220 other countries. The stock has gained 42% this year as COVID-19 spurred online shopping volumes and demand for the company’s delivery services. That helped to offset some of FedEx’s drop in business-to-business deliveries. The company also raised its shipping rates to help offset its higher costs. FedEx recently wrote off the remaining $348 million of goodwill associated with its 2004 purchase of Kinko’s (now called FedEx Office). It bought that chain of stores selling printing and copying services…