Topic: How To Invest

Wall Street Stock Forecaster Hotline – Friday, April 26, 2019

Article Excerpt

3M COMPANY, $191.67, New York symbol MMM, makes over 60,000 consumer and industrial goods, including Post-It notes, Scotch tape, Scotch-Brite cleaning products, Scotchguard fabric protection and Thinsulate insulation. The stock fell 12% this week after 3M reported worse-than-expected quarterly sales and earnings, mainly due to declining demand in China. It also cut its outlook for all of 2019. In the three months ended March 31, 2019, overall sales fell 5.0%, to $7.86 billion from $8.28 billion a year earlier. That missed the consensus forecast of $8.02 billion. If you factor out currency rates and businesses that 3M bought and sold, sales declined 1.1% in the quarter. The lower sales were mainly due to a 2.8% drop at the Industrial division (35% of total sales) on weaker demand from automotive and aerospace customers. Sales also declined 0.1% for the Safety & Graphics business (20% of sales). As well, weak demand from makers of consumer electronics cut sales by 3.0% at the Electronics and Energy…