Covenant earnings drop despite gain in freight revenue

Despite a gain in freight revenue, net income for the Covenant Transportation Group fell by 60 percent in the second quarter compared with a year ago.

But the Chattanooga-based trucking company still beat Wall Street estimates for the period by a penny a share.

Covenant earned $1.5 million, or 8 cents per share, on revenues of $164.3 million. In the same period a year earlier, Covenant earned $3.6 million, or 20 cents per share, on revenues of $160.2 million.

Richard B. Cribbs, Covenant’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, said he expects “favorable yearover-year comparison in freight revenue per tractor” during the current quarter.

“Our goal remains to deliver earnings improvement for the second half of 2017 as compared to the second half of 2016,” Cribbs said.

McDonald’s sales rise on dollar drinks

OAK BROOK, Ill. — McDonald’s is trying to modernize its image by rolling out delivery and promising fresh beef in Quarter Pounders. But for now, $1 sodas are helping get people in the door.

The company said Tuesday that discounted drinks and a new line of pricier burgers helped boost sales in its flagship U.S. market by 3.9 percent at existing locations during the second quarter.

CEO Steve Easterbrook has been working on transforming the chain’s menu and stores to get customers visiting more often in an increasingly competitive environment.

Customer visits have declined in the U.S. for four straight years at existing locations, and McDonald’s is on track to shrink its domestic footprint for the third year in a row.

McDonald’s is looking beyond its core menu and offering pastries by registers in some locations, and testing “dessert stations” behind the counter that would let employees make an expanded menu of treats.

For the three months that ended June 30, McDonald’s earned $1.4 billion, or $1.70 per share. Earnings adjusted for non-recurring costs came to $1.73 per share, beating analysts’ forecast for $1.62, according to a poll by Zacks Investment Research.

AT&T tops forecasts in second quarter

Shares of AT&T Inc. rose Tuesday after the company’s secondquarter profit and revenue beat industry analysts’ projections.

The phone and video company also said that it still expects its

$85 billion Time Warner deal to close this year. AT&T bought DirecTV in 2015 and wants the owner of the CNN, TBS and HBO networks and a movie studio so it can expand beyond its traditional business lines as the wireless phone industry becomes more competitive.

AT&T said Tuesday it added 127,000 wireless customers — users of cellphones and tablets — who pay a bill at the end of the month, the more lucrative kind of customer. That’s compared with a gain of 257,000 customers in the AprilJune quarter last year. It also added fewer prepaid customers.

Revenue from the wireless business declined 2 percent, to $17.5 billion, and customers paid AT&T less, on average. This year’s shift to unlimited plans has cut into the fees charged by phone companies when customers go over their data caps on some limited-data plans.

In its TV business, video customers fell by 199,000, a deeper loss than a year ago, to 25.2 million. More Americans are cutting traditional TV service as online video gets more popular.

Overall, net income for AT&T rose 15 percent to $3.92 billion, or 63 cents per share. Earnings, adjusted for one-time gains and costs, were 79 cents per share, beating the 74-cent estimate of the 20 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.