What happened
Shares of premium heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) company AAON (AAON 0.26%) soared by 12.2% this week through the close of trading on Thursday.
In a week where major industrial companies reported earnings, AAON's stock performance wasn't so much about its earnings (they will be released on Nov.7) but more about what its peers, like Carrier (CARR 9.20%) are saying.
AAON is a player in the premium industrial, commercial, and nonresidential HVAC market. That's a good thing right now because it's a case of two markets. First, the residential market is slowing due to tough comparisons with 2021 (when consumers elected to spend more on their homes due to stay-at-home measures) and slowing consumer spending.
On the other hand, the nonresidential HVAC market is in excellent health, driven by a reopening economy; spending on ensuring healthy, clean buildings, and retrofit demand from the desire to improve efficiency and reduce emissions.
So what
Carrier's results, released this week, helped to underline these diverging trends. For example, Carrier's light commercial and residential orders in the third quarter were down 5% to 10%. On the other hand, its commercial HVAC orders were up 15% to 20%. It's the latter that provides a direct read-across to AAON's prospects for the quarter.
Now what
For investors who like to keep abreast of what AAON might report on Nov. 7, it's a good idea to take a look at what peers Trane Technologies (TT 0.97%) and Johnson Controls (JCI -0.25%) say when they release earnings on Nov. 2 and Nov. 3, respectively. If Carrier's results are anything to go by, then AAON's core U.S. nonresidential market is in excellent shape right now.
