Tyson Foods' Stock Ticks Higher Following Q1 Print

Shares of Tyson Foods, Inc. (NYSE: TSN) were trading higher by more nearly 4 percent early Friday morning after the company reported its first quarter results.

Tyson Foods earned $1.15 per share in the first quarter on revenue of $9.152 billion. Wall Street analysts were expecting the company to earn $0.89 per share on revenue of $10 billion.

Adjusted operating income for the quarter rose to $776 million from $564 million in the same quarter a year ago. The company also reported a record total company operating margin of 8.5 percent.

Tyson Foods noted that its record cash flow of $1.1 billion in the quarter allowed for $300 million of share repurchases in the quarter, bringing its total buybacks to $550 million over the past two quarters, plus an additional $200 million to date in the second quarter. As such, the company's Board of Directors authorizes an increase to its share buyback program of 50 million shares.

"Our on-going efforts to invest in and grow our Core 9 product lines are paying off as sales volume for the most recent four week period was up 4%," said Donnie Smith, president and chief executive officer of Tyson Foods. "The Core 9 product lines represent our strongest brands, greatest pricing power and best category growth opportunities and are major contributors to volume and profitability in the retail channel. The Core 9 is composed of nine retail product lines in the Tyson®, Jimmy Dean®, Hillshire Farm®, Ball Park®, State Fair® and Aidells® brands.

Looking forward to fiscal 2016, Tyson Foods is now guiding its fiscal 2016 earnings per share to a range of $3.85 to $3.95 - exceeding the $3.63 per share analysts were already estimating. The company also cut its full year sales outlook from $41 billion to $37 billion - short of the $39.8 billion analysts were already estimating.