Blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average stock 3M soared early Tuesday after the industry giant reported better-than-expected earnings for the first-quarter quarter and outlined the expected impact from President Donald Trump's trade war on 2025 profit.
The diversified maker of various industrial and medical products delivered adjusted earnings of $1.88 a share, while revenue totaled $5.8 billion. Prior to the release early Tuesday, analysts expected EPS of $1.77 and sales coming in at $5.76 billion. 3M also revised its expected 2025 profit expectations with an "additional" tariff "sensitivity" of between a 20 cent to 40 cent loss to its already issued full-year guidance.
In January, the blue chip defensive stock issued a preliminary 2025 outlook, expecting sales growth in the range of 0.5%-1.5% and per-share earnings between $7.60-$7.90. Last month, the St. Paul, Minn.-based company maintained its 2025 forecast and reported that it expects to achieve an operating margin of about 25% by 2027, with high-single digit EPS growth annually.
The Dow Jones component also said it plans to return at least $10 billion in cash to shareholders by 2027. 3M reported that it returned $1.7 billion to shareholders via dividends and share repurchases in Q1.
Blue Chip: 3M Stock
"In this dynamic environment we remain focused on improving the fundamentals in the business, building a new performance culture and advancing our strategic priorities while leveraging our extensive global network and significant U.S. footprint," Chief Executive William Brown said Tuesday in the earnings release.
3M stock soared 7.5% to 135.59 during Tuesday's stock market action, leading the Dow Jones and rebounding after dropping 3% lower on Monday.
The blue chip stock has a 21-day average true range of 4.42%. The ATR metric is available on IBD's MarketSurge charting tool. It gauges the characteristic breadth of a stock's behavior. Stocks that tend to make large jumps or dives in daily action, the kind that can trigger sell rules and shake investors out of a stock, have a high ATR. Stocks that tend to make more incremental moves have lower ATRs.
In the current market, IBD suggests stocks with ATRs of 3% or below.
Shares of 3M hold an 84 Composite Rating out of 99. Additionally, the blue chip Dow stock has an 86 Relative Strength Rating and an EPS Rating of 54.
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