FedEx Corp. (FDX) reported its fiscal third quarter results this morning, and beat both consensus profit and revenue estimates for the quarter ending in February 2010. The company also raised its EPS estimate for the full 2010 fiscal year from a range of $3.45-$3.75 to $3.60-$3.80. Shares were down about 2.5% in very early trading. Rival United Parcel Service, Inc. (UPS) is also down slightly following FedEx’s report.

Let’s see — FedEx beat EPS and revenue estimates, forecast higher than expected earnings for the full year, and now gets to watch it share price fall. There’s something wrong with this picture.

What appears to be causing the fall in the company’s share price are two things. First FedEx said it plans to increase capital spending in fiscal year 2011 from $2.6 billion to $2.9 billion. The company plans to buy more 777 planes from Boeing Co. (BA). Presumably FedEx is planning to haul more stuff so it needs more planes so it has to spend some money to buy them. That’s $300 million that won’t go to investors, so the stock gets beaten up.

The second thing FedEx is doing is re-instating some of the employee compensation programs that it had cut in response to the recession. The company’s CFO said that sharing some of the profits with employees will “dampen” EPS growth in the fourth quarter and in fiscal year 2011. FedEx laid off 1,000 people in April 2009, after cutting 900 at its freight subsidiary in February. The company also cut salaries and other benefits in an effort to save $1 billion in costs. Now that FedEx has weathered the stormy economy and wants to share some of its good fortune with its employees, the stock gets pummeled.

FedEx and UPS are often viewed as leading indicators of how the economy is going. If forecasts are up, that means more goods are being shipped and the economy is getting better. And, if that’s what is happening, then the companies should be growing and expanding as well. That’s what FedEx said it was doing, but growth has costs and investors don’t want to have to pay those costs.

Of course this could be just another example of the “Buy the rumor, sell the news” syndrome. The sell-off in FedEx shares could just be normal profit-taking, and we’ll see the stock rise as the day and the weeks go on.

Somehow, though, the initial reaction to FedEx’s report just seems so wrong. Share prices are down only about 0.5% after the first hour of trading, and volume has already surpassed the company’s average daily volume, which indicates that the share price might recover further. At least some investors are seeing the strength of FedEx’s report and forecast. Part of that strength is spending to grow and sharing recent good fortune with employees.

Tell us what you think here.

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