Shares of Deere & Co. DE bounced 3.0% in premarket trading Friday, after the maker of agriculture, construction and forestry equipment reported fiscal first-quarter profit and revenue that beat expectations by wide margins, with all segments seeing both higher shipment volumes and higher pricing. Net income for the quarter to Jan. 29 more than doubled, to $1.96 billion, or $6.55 a share, from $903 million, or $2.92 a share, in the year-ago period. The FactSet consensus for earnings per share was $5.57. Revenue jumped 32.2% to $12.65 billion, well above the FactSet consensus of $11.34 billion, with production and precision agriculture sales rising 55% to $5.20 billion, small agriculture and turf sales up 14% to $3.00 billion and construction and forestry sales climbing 26% to $3.20 billion. For fiscal 2023, the company nudged up its sales outlook for production and precision ag sales growth to about 20% from 15% to 20% and for construction and forestry to up 10% to 15% from up about 10%. The stock, which closed Thursday at a three-month low, has slipped 2.4% over the past three months while the S&P 500 SPX has gained 3.6%.
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