Minor setback for CP

Article Excerpt

CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY LTD. $60.05 (Toronto symbol CP; Shares outstanding: 169.2 million; Market cap: $10.0 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 2.0%; www.cpr.ca) saw its earnings fall 23.2% in the three months ended June 30, 2011, to $128.0 million, or $0.75 a share. However, that beat the consensus estimate of $0.73 a share. A year earlier, the company earned $166.6 million, or $0.98 a share. The earnings drop was mainly caused by bad weather: flooding in the Canadian prairies and North Dakota caused nearly 90 service disruptions in the quarter. A 37% rise in fuel costs also weighed on its earnings. Even with the flooding, CP’s revenue rose 2.5%, to $1.26 billion from $1.23 billion. The bad weather also caused CP’s operating ratio to worsen, to 81.8% from 77.8% a year earlier. (Operating ratio is calculated by dividing regular operating costs by revenue. The lower the ratio, the better.) Still, this measure should improve as conditions return to normal. CP Rail is a buy…