A Thaw For Freight, Transport Stocks Continues On The Street

Wall Street's favor for freight and transport stocks continues, with the second upgrade of a major package handler in as many days on hopes of a recovery.

But the analysts making favorable freight, rail and shipping calls seem to have much more faith in manufacturing growth and rising commodity shipments than they do in the U.S. consumer.

Credit Suisse analysts threw out a negative rating on United Parcel Service (UPS) shares Monday, pointing to improving domestic and international shipping as they raised the stock to neutral from underperform.

"The contraction in freight has ended," analysts Christopher Ceraso, Allison Landry and Liam O'Donovan wrote, saying their own freight forecasts, FedEx Corp.'s (FDX) better-than-expected earnings preannouncement last week and a stock that has lagged its peers each augur better news, though not a buy rating, for UPS shares.

They don't expect a sudden surge. Rather, Credit Suisse forecasts another six quarters of shrinking declines in freight tonnage before any year-over-year increases.

The upgrade follows a positive report on competitor FedEx from Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, where analyst Ken Hoexter urged clients to buy the stock, even though consumer sentiment may remain weak.

"We expect the airfreight and railroads to continue to post strength in the near term," Hoexter wrote, raising the shares to a buy rating from neutral.

Those moves follow BMO Capital Markets' Sept. 3 upgrade of rail carriers Norfolk Southern Corp. (NSC) and CSX Corp. (CSX) to outperform from market perform, premised in part on coal shipments and a turn in manufacturing and chemicals.

But BMO also cut its view of rail carrier Burlington Northern (BNI) to market perform.

"The U.S. consumer will be in financial rehab for a couple of years," analyst Randy Cousins said as he urged clients to avoid rails with greater consumer exposure.

UPS shares did not move much following Credit Suisse's upgrade, rising a fraction of a percent to $58.87 in recent trading.

FedEx shares bounced last week following the company's earnings preannouncement, however, with shares rising 6.4% Friday to $77.32. Shares rose half a percent in recent trading to $77.72.

-By Brendan Conway, Dow Jones Newswires; [phone]; [e-mail]