Astec shares tumble on worries about domestic sales

Shares of Astec Industries Inc. tumbled Tuesday, after the building equipment company said its first-quarter profit rose 14 percent to beat Wall Street estimates, but investors fretted about a possible slowdown in domestic sales.

Astec shares dropped $5.10, or 12.2 percent, to close at $36.60 Tuesday, after falling as low as $35.62 earlier in the day. Over the past 52 weeks, the company's shares have traded between $25.51 and $60.40.

Astec's first-quarter sales jumped 22 percent to $263.1 million, with international sales making up 35 percent of the total compared with 23 percent in the year-ago period.

Baird's David Leiker backed his "Neutral" rating and $40 price target for Astec, saying that while the company's total sales were better-than-expected, both its backlog and order growth, excluding acquisitions, were modestly negative.

Excluding a roughly $21 million benefit from acquisitions, Leiker estimated that Astec's domestic organic revenue growth fell 8 percent to 10 percent from the same period last year.

"While international sales growth (plus 88 percent) remained quite robust, slowing domestic revenue trends and rapidly rising materials costs leave us cautious," Leiker wrote in a note to investors.