Clorox’s Q2 Results Edge Past Street’s Forecast (CLX)

The Clorox Company’s (NYSE: CLX)  fiscal second-quarter earnings soared 17% thanks to robust sales of its disinfectant wipes due to recent flu epidemic and other cleansing products.

Buoyed up by strong results in the fiscal second quarter, Clorox also boosted its outlook on the full-year earnings and revenue.

While the Company upwardly revised the lower range of its earlier full year earnings guidance by 5 cents and expects it to be in the range of $4.25 a share to $4.35 a share, sales-growth is expected to be at 3% to 5%, up from its earlier guidance of 2% to 4% growth.

The Oakland, California-based Company, which operates in four segments: cleaning, household, lifestyle and international, has been witnessing steady sales-growth for more than a year now as the U.S. economy is gradually picking up the momentum. Moreover, some of the Company’s new products such as Hidden Valley salad-dressing flavors and on-the-go Brita water bottles are also helping driving up the top line growth.

For the fiscal second quarter ended Dec. 31, the Company reported a profit of $123 million, or 93 cents a share, compared with $105 million, or 79 cents, in the year-earlier quarter. The most recent quarter included a gain of 3 cents a share associated to a sale-and-leaseback transaction.

Sales during the quarter jumped 8.5% to $1.33 billion. Analysts’ consensus estimate was for earnings of 81 cents a share on revenue of $1.27 billion, according to a data compiled by Thomson Reuters.

Sales in the cleaning segment, which is Clorox’s largest revenue generator, climbed 15% to $425 million while profits in this division soared 28%.

Sales in the household segment division rose 7% while profits leaped 65%.

Sales in the international division increased 3%; nevertheless, income slumped 24%. In company’s lifestyle segment, sales climbed 8% even as income slipped 1% compared with year earlier period.

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Post Written By: Ed Liston Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing in his yacht.