Canadian National Stock Falls 2.5% Since Q3 Earnings Release

Canadian National Railway Company CNI reported impressive third-quarter 2025 results, wherein both earnings and revenues beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate.

The better-than-expected results, however, failed to impress the market as the stock declined 2.5% since the earnings release on Oct. 31.

The earnings of $1.33 per share (C$1.83) outpaced the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 4% and increased 5.6% year over year. Revenues for the third quarter of 2025 were $3.02 billion (C$4.17 billion), surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 1% and rising 0.4% year over year.

Canadian National Railway Company Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

Canadian National Railway Company price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Canadian National Railway Company Quote

Revenue ton-miles (RTMs or a measure of volumes) increased 1% year over year. Carloads rose 4.9% on a year-over-year basis. Freight revenue per RTM inched up 0.6% year over year.

Operating expenses for the third quarter of 2025 fell 1.4% from the year-ago figure. This was mainly due to prudent cost-cutting efforts.

The operating income for the third quarter of 2025 grew 6% from the third quarter of 2024 actuals. The operating ratio, defined as operating expenses as a percentage of revenues on an adjusted basis, improved by 170 basis points to 61.4% in the third quarter of 2025.

CNI’s Q3 Segmental Highlights

Freight revenues, which contributed 95.8% to the top line, increased 1.8% year over year. Freight revenues in petroleum and chemicals, coal and intermodal rose 1.8%, 3.5% and 11.1%, year over year, respectively. Metals and minerals, forest products and grain and fertilizers fell by 5%, 3.4% and 1.4% on a year-over-year basis.

Segment-wise, carloads in petroleum and chemicals, coal, intermodal and automotive segments increased by 3%, 5%, 15% and 4% on a year-over-year basis.

Carloads in the metals and minerals and forest products segments decreased 7% each on a year-over-year basis. The same in the grain and fertilizers segment remained flat on a year-over-year basis.

CNI’s Liquidity

Canadian National ended the third quarter with cash and cash equivalents of C$214 million compared with C$389 million at the end of the fourth quarter of 2024. CNI exited the September-end quarter with a long-term debt of C$19.55 billion compared with C$19.7 billion at the end of the December-end quarter of 2024.

CNI generated C$1.91 billion of cash from operating activities. Free cash flow was C$793 million.

Under its current Normal Course Issuer Bid (“NCIB”), CNI may repurchase up to 20 million common shares between Feb. 4, 2025 and Feb. 3, 2026. As of Sept. 30, 2025, CNI had repurchased 9.9 million common shares for $1.32 billion under its current NCIB.

CNI repurchased 13.9 million common shares under its previous NCIB, including 0.6 million common shares in the first quarter of 2025, which allowed for the repurchase of up to 32 million common shares between Feb. 1, 2024 and Jan. 31, 2025.

CNI’s Outlook

For the fourth quarter of 2025, CNI approved a dividend of C$0.8875 per share to be paid on Dec. 30, 2025, to shareholders of record at the close of business on Dec. 9, 2025.

For the full-year 2025, CNI continues to anticipate delivering a mid to high-single-digit range of adjusted earnings per share growth and plans to invest approximately C$3.35 billion in its capital program, net of amounts reimbursed by customers.

CNI’s Zacks Rank

Currently, CNI has a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Q3 Performances of Some Other Transportation Companies

Delta Air Lines DAL reported third-quarter 2025 earnings (excluding 46 cents from non-recurring items) of $1.71 per share, which beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.52. Earnings increased 14% on a year-over-year basis due to low fuel costs.

Revenues in the September-end quarter were $16.67 billion, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $15.79 billion and increasing 6.4% on a year-over-year basis. Due to improving air-travel demand, adjusted operating revenues (excluding third-party refinery sales) increased 4.1% year over year to $15.2 billion. 

J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. JBHT reported third-quarter 2025 earnings of $1.76 per share, which surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.47 and improved 18.1% year over year.

Total operating revenues of $3.05 billion surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $3.02 billion and were down 0.5% year over year. JBHT’s third-quarter revenue performance was hurt by a 1% and 4% decline in gross revenue per load in Intermodal (JBI) and Truckload (JBT), respectively, a decrease in load volume of 8% and 1% in Integrated Capacity Solutions (ICS) and Dedicated Contract Services (DCS), respectively, and 8% fewer stops in Final Mile Services (FMS). These items were partially offset by a 3 % improvement in DCS productivity, a 9% increase in revenue per load in ICS and 14% load growth in JBT. Total operating revenue, excluding fuel surcharge revenue, fell less than 1% year over year.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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