WD-40 Company shares traded as much as 14.5% higher in Thursday overnight trading via Blue Ocean ATS. The household lubricant maker beat Wall Street’s revenue and profit estimates by wide margins.
WD-40 also raised its full year guidance. The company pointed to stronger than expected demand for its core spray lubricant business.
Revenue and Profit Both Clear Estimates
WD-40 reported $195.1 million in sales, a 24.3% jump from a year ago. That easily beat the $173 million Wall Street expected. Profit per share also beat expectations. WD-40 earned $2.24 for every share, well above the $1.57 analysts had penciled in.
Two other numbers show how efficiently WD-40 turned sales into profit. Operating margin, the share of revenue left after covering core costs, rose to 20.7% from 17.4% a year ago. That means the company kept more of every dollar it made.
Free cash flow margin, the actual cash left over after running the business, dipped to 15% from 21.6%. Even with that dip, it still beat WD-40’s average over the past two years.
Zooming out, WD-40 has grown sales by 8.6% a year on average over the past three years. Analysts now expect growth to slow to just 3% over the next 12 months, a sign that this quarter’s strength may be hard to repeat.
While Chips Dominate, WD-40 Delivers
Wall Street’s biggest gains this year have mostly gone to one theme: AI chips and the infrastructure behind them. Nvidia, Micron, and their peers have swung by double digits on a single earnings report, driven by massive bets on data centers and computing power. WD-40 makes none of that, but still found a way to beat expectations and reward shareholders.
The company raised its full-year revenue guidance to $682.5 million at the midpoint, a 6.2% increase from its prior $642.5 million target. Full-year profit guidance also climbed, with earnings per share now expected to reach $6.20 at the midpoint, above what analysts had projected.
Shares closed at $272.00 after the report, pushing WD-40’s market capitalization to $3.02 billion. That’s a fraction of a single AI chipmaker’s daily swing in market value, but it’s a reminder that steady, unglamorous businesses can still deliver when they execute well.
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