Expeditors shares jump after 3Q beats expectations

Also Tuesday, a Citi Investment Research analyst initiated a "Buy" rating on the stock and a Baird analyst raised his price target to $44 from $39.

The company said its net income rose 15 percent to $85.6 million, or 39 cents per share, compared with $74.3 million, or 34 cents per share, in the year-earlier period.

Revenue rose 11 percent to $1.56 billion, from $1.41 billion.

Analysts were expecting a profit of 37 cents per share on revenue of $1.57 billion, according to a poll by Thomson Reuters.

The company attributed results to better margins and higher revenue across all three of its main business segments--airfreight, ocean freight and customs brokerage.

"There are no short-term, financially engineered, profitability gimmicks in these numbers that will unravel over time because they lack economic substance," said Peter J. Rose, chairman and chief executive. "These results also show that we are capable of executing effectively in the face of some rather challenging circumstances."

In a client note, Baird analyst Jon Langenfeld maintained his "Outperform" rating on the stock, noting the "strong quarter" was driven by better margins and falling freight rates that balanced sluggish demand.

In afternoon trading, the stock rose $6, or 19 percent, to $38.