FedEx Gives Us a Peek at Its Package

It's been barely a month since FedEx (NYSE: FDX) last graced investors with a quarterly earnings report. Its next update is nearly two months away, but investors already know what to expect. For this glimpse of the future, you can thank FedEx itself.

Yesterday the package-meister revealed that things are going so swimmingly since it last reported earnings, it's already ready to up the ante on the current quarter. At $1.05 to $1.25 per share in profit, the first quarter of 2010's numbers should be roughly twice what the company earned a year ago -- and way, way ahead of Wall Street's buck-a-share consensus.

FedEx attributes its newfound bullishness to "revenue and earnings growth … exceeding original expectations, primarily due to better-than-anticipated growth in FedEx Express and FedEx Ground volumes." Parsing the language, analysts at Wells Fargo suggest that Asian growth -- and shipments of Apple iPhones and other handheld devices, in particular -- are fueling FedEx's fires.

But enough about me, let's talk about you …
Fulfilling its role as Anointed Barometer to the Global Economy, FedEx goes even further to say its forecast is based on its "current market outlook for fuel prices and a continued moderate recovery in the global economy."

Translation: From where FedEx sits, fuel prices are unlikely to rise over the next few months (ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) and Chevron (NYSE: CVX) investors, take heed). But just to be safe, FedEx is going ahead with plans to buy a half-dozen fuel-efficient 777 transnational transport aircraft from Boeing (NYSE: BA), which will probably be used to capitalize on the Chinese growth Wells Fargo spoke of.

On the downside, the economy, while somewhat stronger than today's consumer confidence numbers might suggest, is not surging quite as much as stock bulls might hope. This suggestion is implicit in that while the company added $0.20 to its Q1 forecast, it added no more pennies to the year's succeeding quarters, raising full-year guidance only the same $0.20 to a grand total of $4.60 to $5.20. (On the plus side, UPS (NYSE: UPS) backed up the bullish full-year outlook last week, upping its own guidance to a max of $3.45 in per-share earnings.)

Bonus news
Last but not least, FedEx says it's restoring company matching funds on its 401(k) plans effective Jan. 1 of next year. Not meaning to pound the table here or anything, but it's unlikely FedEx would make this move, and make it so publicly, were it not pretty darn confident that the recovery is at hand.

Invest accordingly.