Kimberly-Clark Beats, Reaffirms Full-Year Guidance

Kimberly-Clark Corp., maker of personal hygiene products Kleenex and Huggies, reported earnings this morning that surpassed analyst expectations, as well as the expectations it had set for itself a month ago. First quarter net earnings climbed 64% to $452 million, good for EPS of $0.98; excluding one-time items, adjusted earnings were $1.03 a share, up from $0.93 in the prior year period. The company had announced it expected to pull in EPS of "$1.01 or more" last month. Revenue was higher by 7.8% to 4.39 million on increased sales, reduced costs, and a lower effective tax rate. Thomson Financial analysts were expecting EPS of $1.01 on revenue of $4.27 billion. Kimberly-Clark's shares closed at a six-year high of $71.94 on Friday; they trade at 15.8 times next year's expected earnings, versus larger rival Procter & Gamble's shares, which go for 18.4 times next year's projected earnings. Kimberly-Clark reaffirmed its full-year adjusted EPS guidance of $4.10-$4.20.

Sources: Press Release, Bloomberg, MarketWatch, Reuters
Commentary: Consumer Staples Far Below 50-DMA: Buying Opportunity? • Kimberly Clark: Watch the Paper -- Barron's • Cramer's Take on KMB
Stocks/ETFs to watch: Kimberly-Clark Corporation (KMB). Competitors: The Procter & Gamble Company (PG), Playtex Products (PYX). ETFs: Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR (XLP), Vanguard Consumer Staples ETF (VDC), PowerShares Dynamic Consumer Staples (PSL)

Seeking Alpha's news briefs are combined into a pre-market summary called Wall Street Breakfast. Get Wall Street Breakfast by email -- it's free and takes only seconds to sign up.