Potlatch Corporation – Experiencing weak domestic housing market

Potlatch Corporation (NASDAQ:PCH). Last Market Price: 34.39, Change: +0.45, % Change: (1.33%). Shares trade in the range of 34.25 – 35.48 dollars. It has a market capitalization of 1.38B dollars, making it a Small Cap Stock and has 40.19M outstanding shares. The company has a beta of 1.07, indicating, the stock to be more volatile than the market. As per the most recent quarterly report, the net income per share (EPS) is 1.07; P/E of 32.06 indicating high expected future growth in earnings. It operates in Services sector and belongs to Real Estate Operations industry. Percentage shares held by institutional investors is 75%. The company has a 52 week Price range (low – high) of $ 28.01 – 40.93. Average volumes of shares traded daily are 345,969. Volume traded in the last session was at 86,456, 0.25 times the average volume.

• Reports Q3 (Sep)
• EPS of $0.63 better than the estimates
• Revenues fell 3.8% year on year to $152.9 million.
• Commenting on its outlook company states: We continue to experience the impact of the weak domestic housing market that is limiting demand for both our logs and manufactured wood products. Unfortunately, a large customer in Arkansas recently idled its facility at the end of the third quarter, which will further lower sawlog demand and corresponding pricing in our Southern region.In total, we now expect our 2011 harvest to be approximately 4.1 million tons, as we have elected to defer roughly 100,000 tons of Southern sawlog harvest this year due to weak market conditions.

For Q2 (Jun ’11), It had a Net profit margin of 7.52%, an Operating margin of 15.80%. Other Key stats and ratios are : Return on average assets of 4.52%, Return on average equity of 18.06%. The organization has an employee strength of 870

Consensus Recommendation is a Hold.

Estimate for sales for the Year Ending Dec-11 show a mean of 514.92 million dollars, an estimate high of 546.50 million dollars and an estimate low of 491.00 million dollars. A year ago the figures stood at 529.88 million dollars.

Estimate for sales for the Year Ending Dec-12 show a mean of 534.65 million dollars, an estimate high of 589.59 million dollars and an estimate low of 485.00 million dollars. A year ago the figures stood at 583.21 million dollars.

Estimate for EPS for the Year Ending Dec-11 show a mean of 1.15 dollars, an estimate high of 1.25 dollars and an estimate low of 1.06 dollars. A year ago the figures stood at 1.51 dollars.

Estimate for EPS for the Year Ending Dec-12 show a mean of 1.31 dollars, an estimate high of 1.40 dollars and an estimate low of 1.15 dollars. A year ago the figures stood at 1.85 dollars.

Sales for Quarter Ending Jun-11 was estimated at 115.04 million dollars, however the actual sales figure stood at 112.37 million dollars, 2.67 million dollars less than estimates.

Sales for Quarter Ending Mar-11 was estimated at 120.29 million dollars, however the actual sales figure stood at 122.23 million dollars, 1.94 million dollars more than estimates.

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.