Nov. 4, 2025
— Jeff Ward, Lehigh Valley News Briefs
Lehigh Valley companies will report quarterly earnings
OraSure (NASDAQ:OSUR) continues to fall. The stock has been dropping since the COVID-19 pandemic. It was at $2.63 at 11:40 a.m. today and long-term investors continue to lose. OraSure sometimes refers to itself as OTI (OraSure Technologies Inc.) but by any name, it’s a long-term laggard.
The Bethlehem-based maker of diagnostic kits and specimen-collection devices will report third-quarter results Wednesday after the close of trading and follow up with a 5 p.m. conference call.
Maybe it will have something exciting to report. Maybe there will be some management changes, or maybe what OraSure really needs — an outside investor or buyer or something — will step up. For years, nothing OraSure has done on its own has helped.
OraSure keeps destroying investor wealth, while Chief Executive Carrie Eglinton Manner, now leading the company for more than three years, has made millions of dollars.
PPL Corp. will also report third-quarter earnings tomorrow, early, and hold a conference call at 11 a.m.
CEO Vincent Sorgi may address various things, including the Allentown-based utility’s case for a rate increase, demand from data centers and financial forecasts during the call.
PPL is the Lehigh Valley’s big winner this year. Shares (NYSE:PPL) traded at $36.20 at 11:47 a.m., up about 14% on the year, plus quarterly dividends.
Air Products, which has been a disaster so far this year, will report fiscal fourth-quarter results Thursday, Nov. 6, and hold a conference call.
Shares in the Upper Macungie Township-based maker of industrial gases traded at $239.34 as of 11:53 a.m., after new management promised big changes and one activist investor said shares could rise to $425 under that new management.
At the price above, Air Products (NYSE:APD) is trading about $102 below its 52-week high. I’d say management has some explaining to do. Making noise about the former direction under Seifi Ghasemi was the easy part. Now it’s time to deliver, and so far, the leadership team with Eduardo Menezes as CEO hasn’t done that.
It’s a big company, so change takes time but this share decline has taken several billion dollars of Air Products’ market capitalization. I might check out the conference call. Ghasemi was always pretty open, and even discussed the share price, a no-no for many CEOs.
Shift4 will also post third-quarter results Thursday, before regular markets open, and hold a conference call. The Upper Saucon Township-based payment processer has expanded geographically and into new businesses, but the shares (NYSE:FOUR) have been slumping.
The price at 12:01 p.m. today was $67.59, little more than half of the $127.50 52-week high.
Founder Jared Isaacman stepped down as CEO this year in favor of Taylor Lauber, but Isaacman remains as executive chairman.
— Disclosure: I own shares of PPL and Shift4 and sometimes buy OraSure when it looks like it will bounce back to its cash-per-share value of about $3.20.
I have closed a position in Air Products after years of weak performance.
Lehigh Valley News Briefs 