What Happened?
Shares of diversified industrial manufacturing company Worthington (NYSE: WOR) jumped 23.1% in the morning session after the company reported strong first-quarter (fiscal Q3 2025) results, which blew past analysts' estimates for the key metrics we track, including sales, operating income, and earnings estimates.
Sales were down a bit (about 4%), but that's only because they spun off one of their businesses. If you ignore that, volumes were up, and a new acquisition (Ragasco) helped too.
Margins told the real tale. Operating profit more than tripled, and that strength flowed through to earnings, which rose sharply even with lower overall sales. Zooming out, we think this quarter featured some important positives.
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What The Market Is Telling Us
Worthington’s shares are not very volatile and have only had 5 moves greater than 5% over the last year. Moves this big are rare for Worthington and indicate this news significantly impacted the market’s perception of the business.
The biggest move we wrote about over the last year was 3 months ago when the stock gained 16.8% on the news that the company reported strong third-quarter (FQ2 2025) results that exceeded analysts' EPS and EBITDA expectations, while revenue came in roughly in line with Wall Street's estimates. While the top line implied a growth decline, this was due to an unfavorable comparison caused by the divestiture of its Sustainable Energy Solutions segment. Zooming out, we think this quarter featured some important positives.
Worthington is up 33.4% since the beginning of the year, but at $51.96 per share, it is still trading 16.5% below its 52-week high of $62.23 from March 2024. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Worthington’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $2,032.
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