Pilgrim's Pride Corporation was founded in 1946 and produces, processes, and distributes fresh, frozen, and value-added chicken products to retailers, distributors, and food-service companies. It exports chicken products to about 120 countries, and operates a vertically integrated business model. This means that PPC controls almost all of its business operations, from raising livestock to distribution of final products. The company is broken down into three segments: 1) U.S., 2) U.K. and Europe, and 3) Mexico. The U.S. segment is the largest in net sales. The company deals with poultry products in all segments, while it only deals with pork products in the U.K. Its two largest customers contributed just over an eighth of total revenue. Across 14 U.S. states, the U.K., Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Europe, Pilgrim's operates 39 production facilities and 27 prepared foods facilities. Pilgrim's owns Moy Park, a poultry and prepared foods company in the U.K. and Europe, as well as Tulip Limited, a pork and prepared foods company in the U.K. Headquartered in Greeley, Colorado, the company has over 61,200 employees. Pilgrim's has a market cap of more than $10.9 billion.

U.S. stocks fell on Thursday on disappointing results from Tech companies. Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq posted their largest one-day losses since the beginning of September. The S&P 500 was down 1.9%, the Nasdaq lost 2.8% and the Dow fell 0.9%. Both crude oil and gold traded higher.

Pilgrim’s Pride is the second-largest poultry producer in the US (58% of 2023 sales), the UK (30% including other European sales), and Mexico (12%). Its UK and European arm also includes pork operations from the 2019 acquisition of Tulip. Pilgrim's sells to chain restaurants, food processors, food distributors, and retail chains. Most of its US and Mexican sales come from fresh chicken, while prepared chicken and pork constitute most of its UK and European sales. JBS owns more than 80% of Pilgrim’s Pride's outstanding shares, though it failed to acquire the remaining stake in 2021 after a special board committee deemed JBS’ offer undervalued Pilgrim’s Pride.

The third-quarter 2024 earnings season gets under way later this week, launched, as usual, by the earnings reports from the big banks. In the following week, the floodgates will open, with Consumer, Healthcare and Industrial companies all releasing results. Information Technology and Energy companies generally report later in the earnings period, and then the Retailers wrap things up, likely in mid-November. Consensus earnings-per-share growth estimates for 3Q24 range from mid-single-digits to low-double-digits. This follows 12%-13% growth in second-quarter EPS and 8% growth in the first quarter, according to Refinitiv. Leading sectors for the third quarter are expected to be Information Technology (+15% EPS growth year over year), Communication Services (+12%), and Healthcare (+11%). On the downside, earnings from the Energy sector are expected to decline by 22% and Materials by 3%. Revenue is expected to increase 4%, led by Information Technology (+12%) and Healthcare (+7%). For 2024, our full-year S&P 500 earnings estimate is $247, implying high-single-digit growth from 2023 levels. Our preliminary 2025 estimate is $265. Remember, companies generally exceed earnings expectations. Last quarter, just about four-fifths of companies exceeded consensus expectations and the average beat against expectations was 5%.