Shares of Kimberly-Clark Corp. KMB fell 3.8% toward a two-month low in premarket trading Wednesday, after the consumer products company, with brands including Kleenex, Huggies, Depend and Cottonelle, topped fourth-quarter profit expectations but came up shy on sales. Net income rose to $507 million, or $1.50 a share, from $357 million, or $1.06 a share, in the year-ago period. Excluding nonrecurring items, adjusted earnings per share of $1.54 was above the FactSet consensus of $1.51. Sales of $4.964 billion was in line with year-ago sales of $4.965 billion, but was a touch below the FactSet consensus of $4.985 billion. Pricing rose 10% and product mix increased sales by 1%, while volume declined 7%. Cost of sales fell 5.4% to $3.337 billion, as gross margin improved to 32.8% from 28.9%. For 2023, the company expects sales to be flat to up 2%, while the FactSet sales consensus of $20.381 billion implies 1.0% growth. The stock has run up 12.7% over the past three months through Tuesday, while the S&P 500 SPX has gained 4.1%.
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