快扣 (FAST) 2025 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Greetings, and welcome to the Fastenal 2025 Q3 earnings results conference call. (Operator Instructions)

您好，歡迎參加 Fastenal 2025 年第三季收益結果電話會議。（操作員指示）

As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to introduce your host, Dray Schreiber, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Dray.

提醒一下，本次會議正在錄製中。現在我很高興介紹主持人、投資者關係總監 Dray Schreiber。請繼續，德雷。

Welcome to the Fastenal Company 2025 third-quarter earnings conference call. This call will be hosted by Dan Florness, our Chief Executive Officer; Jeff Watts, our President and Chief Sales Officer; and Sheryl Lisowski, our Interim Chief Financial Officer, Chief Accounting Officer and Treasurer. The call will last for up to one hour, and will start with a general overview of our quarterly results and operations, with the remainder of the time being open for questions and answers.

歡迎參加 Fastenal 公司 2025 年第三季財報電話會議。本次電話會議將由我們的執行長 Dan Florness、我們的總裁兼首席銷售官 Jeff Watts 以及我們的臨時首席財務官、首席會計官兼財務主管 Sheryl Lisowski 主持。電話會議將持續最多一小時，首先概述我們的季度業績和營運情況，其餘時間將開放問答。

Today's conference call is proprietary Fastenal presentation and is being recorded by Fastenal. No recording, reproduction, transmission or distribution of today's call is permitted without Fastenal's consent. This call is being audio simulcast on the Internet via the Fastenal Investor Relations home page, investor.fastenal.com. A replay of the webcast will be available on the website until December 1, 2025 at midnight Central Time.

今天的電話會議是 Fastenal 專有的演示，並由 Fastenal 錄製。未經 Fastenal 同意，不得錄製、複製、傳輸或散佈今天的通話。本次電話會議將透過 Fastenal 投資者關係主頁 investor.fastenal.com 進行音訊線上同步直播。網路直播的重播將持續到美國中部時間 2025 年 12 月 1 日午夜。

As a reminder, today's conference call may include statements regarding the company's future plans and prospects. These statements are based on our current expectations, and we undertake no duty to update them.

提醒一下，今天的電話會議可能包括有關公司未來計劃和前景的聲明。這些聲明是基於我們目前的預期，我們不承擔更新它們的義務。

It is important to note that the company's actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Factors that could cause actual results to differ from anticipated results are contained in the company's latest earnings release and periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and we encourage you to review those factors carefully.

值得注意的是，該公司的實際結果可能與預期結果有重大差異。可能導致實際結果與預期結果不同的因素包含在公司最新的收益報告和向美國證券交易委員會提交的定期文件中，我們鼓勵您仔細審查這些因素。

I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Jeffery Watts.

現在我想把電話轉給傑弗瑞‧沃茨先生。

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. To start, Q3 was a strong quarter, and more importantly, it was a consistent one, and we delivered double-digit growth, expanded margins and continue to gain share in a flat market.

謝謝。大家早安，感謝大家今天加入我們。首先，第三季度表現強勁，更重要的是，這是一個穩定的季度，我們實現了兩位數的成長，擴大了利潤率，並在平穩的市場中繼續獲得份額。

And that's not easy to do, and it speaks to the strength of our strategy and the execution of our teams. But before jumping into it, I'd like to extend a big thank you to our entire Blue team for their hard work this quarter.

這並不容易做到，但這證明了我們的策略實力和團隊執行力。但在開始之前，我想向我們整個藍色團隊本季的辛勤工作表示衷心的感謝。

And when I travel to branches and Onsites and DCs. I'm always struck by the pride and energy and our people, and I'm happy to say that the Fastenal's culture of service, legacy, Bob Kierlin left us is alive and well. So to every employee, thank you for your focus and commitment, the work you do every day in front of our customers behind the scenes. It's what's really driving this performance.

當我前往分店、現場和 DC 時。我總是被我們的員工的自豪感、活力和熱情所震撼，我很高興地說，Fastenal 的服務文化、Bob Kierlin 留給我們的傳統依然鮮活而美好。所以，我要感謝每一位員工的專注和承諾，感謝你們每天在幕後為我們的客戶所做的工作。這才是真正推動這表現的因素。

Also to all of our employees up in Canada, I just want to wish them a happy Thanksgiving, and I hope you're getting to spend some quality time with your friends and family. Now let's get started and turn to slide number 3.

我也想祝福我們在加拿大的所有員工感恩節快樂，並希望你們能與朋友和家人共度美好時光。現在讓我們開始並翻到第 3 張投影片。

In the third quarter, we delivered net sales of $2.13 billion, which is an 11.7% increase over Q3 of last year. This is our second consecutive quarter above the $2 billion mark, which demonstrates the effectiveness of our plan and Fastenal's growing partnership with our customers. It's also worth mentioning that the growth this quarter came with the same number of selling days.

第三季度，我們的淨銷售額為 21.3 億美元，比去年第三季成長 11.7%。這是我們連續第二季的銷售額超過 20 億美元，證明了我們計劃的有效性以及 Fastenal 與客戶之間日益增長的合作關係。另外值得一提的是，本季的成長與銷售天數相同。

So it's a clean comparison. And overall, again, it's a strong result. Now let's discuss the case of the growth through the quarter. One thing we pride ourselves on at Fastenal is solid execution quarter in and quarter out. And Q3 is a good example of this.

所以這是一個清晰的比較。總體而言，這又是一個強勁的結果。現在讓我們討論一下本季的成長情況。在 Fastenal，我們引以為傲的一件事就是每季都執行得非常穩健。Q3 就是一個很好的例子。

Despite a couple of timing quirks, we pretty much met or beat our typical seasonal patterns each month. And in July, we saw daily sales growth of 12.8% with -- with sequential dip from June of about 2.7%, and that's actually better than our historical benchmark, which typically sees about a 3.5% drop from June. So July came in stronger than expected.

儘管存在一些時間上的異常，但我們每個月基本上都達到或超過了典型的季節性模式。7 月份，我們的日銷售額成長了 12.8%，環比 6 月份下降了約 2.7%，這實際上比我們的歷史基準要好，歷史基準通常會比 6 月份下降約 3.5%。因此，七月份的表現比預期的要強勁。

Now 1 nuance here is the timing of the July 4, holiday and landed on a Friday this year, which is important, is it pulled some activity into the first week of July. If it were to fall on a Wednesday or Thursday, kind of like it did last year, we wouldn't see that same activity and our vending data confirm this.

現在這裡的一個細微差別是 7 月 4 日假期的時間，今年恰逢星期五，這很重要，它為 7 月的第一周帶來了一些活動。如果像去年一樣，它落在週三或週四，我們就不會看到同樣的活動，我們的自動販賣數據證實了這一點。

We saw about an 8% increase in vending activity that week compared to when the holiday falls midweek; didn't materially impact the quarter, but it did shift some inter-month cadence. When you add in what we saw in August, September, our Q3 daily sales growth actually came in a bit stronger than our benchmark would have predicted. That was around 11.2%, which is an encouraging sign.

與假期在周中時相比，我們發現該週的自動販賣機活動增加了約 8%；這並沒有對本季度產生實質影響，但確實改變了一些跨月節奏。如果加上我們在八月和九月看到的情況，我們第三季的每日銷售成長實際上比我們的基準預測要強一些。這一比例約為 11.2%，這是一個令人鼓舞的跡象。

And looking at the year-to-date picture, our daily sales from January through September, they're up 15.9% compared to historical benchmark above 9.5. Now that's a big delta. But even when we consider the weather-related issues stated in January and the price/cost for September, we're still showing double-digit sequential growth well ahead of our historic pattern. I think the big takeaway is our underlying growth remains strong and steady. We have a phrase we use internally, plan the work and work the plan.

從今年迄今的情況來看，從1月到9月，我們的日銷售額較歷史基準9.5%以上成長了15.9%。這是一個很大的成長。但即使考慮到一月份出現的天氣相關問題以及九月份的價格/成本，我們仍然顯示出兩位數的連續增長，遠高於我們的歷史模式。我認為最大的收穫是我們的潛在成長仍然強勁而穩定。我們內部使用一句話，計劃工作，按計劃開展工作。

And the team did exactly that in Q3, and it shows in the results. And when we're looking at where the growth came from, the broader market wasn't much help. The industrial economy remains sluggish, essentially flat. I think the PMI averaged about [48.6] in the quarter, which indicates contraction. But I think I'd characterize our growth is mostly self-help in market share gains rather than any particular macro lift.

球隊在第三季度確實做到了這一點，結果也證明了這一點。當我們研究成長的來源時，我們發現大盤並沒有提供太多幫助。工業經濟依然低迷，基本持平。我認為本季的PMI平均值約為[48.6]，這表示經濟處於收縮狀態。但我認為我們的成長主要是透過市場佔有率的增加來實現的，而不是任何特定的宏觀推動。

Pricing did contribute roughly 2.5 percentage points to growth somewhere in the 240, 270 basis points, a bit lighter than we anticipated earlier in the year. But I think Sheryl is going to dive into this in a little bit more detail later in the presentation. I would just add though that our team has done an excellent job communicating with customers on pricing.

定價確實對成長貢獻了大約 2.5 個百分點，介於 240 至 270 個基點之間，比我們今年早些時候的預期要低一些。但我認為 Sheryl 將在稍後的演講中更詳細地探討這個問題。我只想補充一點，我們的團隊在定價方面與客戶溝通做得非常好。

The one thing I hear consistently from customers is the appreciation of Fastenal's transparency and partnership and managing these cost changes. And we're not just passing on increases, we're working side-by-side with their customers to find solutions or alternatives and efficiencies.

我從客戶那裡不斷聽到的一件事是，他們讚賞 Fastenal 的透明度和合作夥伴關係以及對這些成本變化的管理。我們不僅僅是轉嫁增加的費用，我們還與他們的客戶並肩工作，尋找解決方案或替代方案和效率。

That kind of responsiveness, it builds trust, and it's a big reason we're continuing to gain share. Aside from price, the rest of our growth, roughly 8 to 9 points came from volume and share gains. And we saw meaningful wins with key accounts, a steady stream of new contract signings and deeper penetration in existing accounts.

這種回應能力可以建立信任，這也是我們繼續獲得市場份額的重要原因。除了價格之外，我們其餘的成長，大約 8 到 9 個百分點來自於銷售和份額的成長。我們看到了關鍵客戶取得的重大勝利、穩定的新合約簽署流程以及現有客戶的更深層滲透。

Our national accounts and Onsite signings over the past year are now ramping up in revenue and it showed this quarter. And in fact, our national account sales were up double digits in Q3, slightly higher than the company, reflecting those new contracts really coming into fruition.

過去一年，我們的全國帳戶和現場簽約收入正在增加，本季也反映了這一點。事實上，我們的全國帳戶銷售額在第三季成長了兩位數，略高於公司，反映出這些新合約確實取得了成果。

Now we turn to slide 4. In terms of our customer category results from our strategy, and we continue to see success with large accounts. Our aim has been to deepen relationship with big customers and in Q3, it showed the number of active customer sites spending over $10,000 per month with us, those sites grew over 8.1%.

現在我們翻到幻燈片 4。就我們的客戶類別而言，這是我們策略的結果，我們繼續看到大客戶的成功。我們的目標是深化與大客戶的關係，第三季顯示，每月在我們這裡消費超過 10,000 美元的活躍客戶網站數量增加了 8.1% 以上。

And those spending over $50,000 per month, what we call onset like locations, the number of those sites grew 15.4% and those are significant gains in penetration. In fact, some long-standing customers are now utilizing us in more plants for more product categories than ever before and I was just down in Texas for some regional VP meetings, and I had a region tell me a story, one of a major manufacturer in this area has been a Fastenal customer for 20 years just expanded Fastenal's program from two sites with them to five sites, essentially making us their primary supplier nationally.

而那些每月花費超過 50,000 美元的場所，也就是我們所說的“起始點”，其數量增長了 15.4%，滲透率顯著提高。事實上，一些長期客戶現在在更多工廠使用我們的產品，生產比以往更多的產品類別，我剛剛在德克薩斯州參加了一些地區副總裁會議，一個地區客戶給我講了一個故事，該地區一家主要製造商已經是 Fastenal 的客戶 20 年了，剛剛將 Fastenal 的項目從兩個站點擴展到五個站點，基本上使我們成為他們在全國範圍內的主要供應商。

And that didn't just happen by accident, it was our team proving themselves and offering new solutions and new product lines. It's a great example of earning more with existing customers by enhancing our services. I also want to highlight the growth we're seeing in what we call nontraditional markets, and that speaks to expanding our total market.

這並非偶然發生，而是我們的團隊證明了自己並提供了新的解決方案和新的產品線。這是透過提升我們的服務來從現有客戶那裡獲得更多收益的一個很好的例子。我還想強調我們在所謂的非傳統市場中看到的成長，這表明我們的整個市場正在擴大。

In the quarter, for example, our business with health care, education, government customers grew nicely and our sales to warehousing and logistic companies, they were up significantly. These segments are outside of heavy manufacturing and they help diversify our base.

例如，在本季度，我們與醫療保健、教育、政府客戶的業務成長良好，我們對倉儲和物流公司的銷售額也大幅成長。這些部分不屬於重型製造業，它們有助於實現我們的基礎多樣化。

We've also signed several new on-site contracts with universities and school districts this year. It's an area we target after the pandemic. Those are now kicking in and contributing to growth and the resilience in our mix.

今年我們也與大學和學區簽署了幾份新的現場合約。這是我們在疫情之後重點關注的領域。這些因素現在正在發揮作用，並促進我們的成長和組合的彈性。

As Dan noted, earlier in the year, institutions and warehouses, they might not boom like manufacturing, but they don't bust as hard either, paraphrasing. So bringing them into the fold makes us a stronger company long term.

正如丹今年稍早指出的那樣，機構和倉庫可能不會像製造業那樣繁榮，但也不會像製造業那樣嚴重衰退，這是他的說法。因此，將他們納入我們的隊伍將使我們的公司長期變得更加強大。

The bottom line is our strategy is delivering. We set out to align the organization behind those three pillars, increasing sales effectiveness, enhancing our services and market expansion. And in Q3, we can see tangible results, faster growth in our core product, fasteners more spend from big customers and entering the new pockets of business.

最重要的是我們的戰略正在實現。我們著手調整組織結構，使其圍繞這三大支柱，提高銷售效率，增強我們的服務並擴大市場。在第三季度，我們可以看到實際的成果，核心產品成長更快，緊固件從大客戶那裡獲得了更多支出，並進入了新的業務領域。

Moving on to slide 5. When I look at slide 5, a few takeaways for me on this slide: First, is we continue to speak about alignment in our strategy. But most of that has been around just our sales departments. I think it's -- I think pointing out that this is a company-wide strategy, it's very important. And our fastener expansion initiative is a good example of this.

轉到投影片 5。當我看投影片 5 時，我從中得到了幾點啟示：首先，我們繼續談論我們策略中的一致性。但其中大部分僅涉及我們的銷售部門。我認為——指出這是一項全公司範圍的策略非常重要。我們的緊固件擴充計畫就是一個很好的例子。

This was a company-wide effort, not just a product push, but a coordinated strategy across sales, supply chains and operations. We improved availability in our DCs. We aligned our teams around some key SKUs and most importantly, we made it easier for our customers to get what they need.

這是全公司的努力，不僅是產品推廣，而是跨銷售、供應鏈和營運的協調策略。我們提高了 DC 的可用性。我們圍繞著一些關鍵 SKU 調整了我們的團隊，最重要的是，我們讓客戶更容易獲得他們所需的東西。

And the result, the Fastenal sales grew over 15% in September, outpacing overall company growth. It resulted in a meaningful lift in not just sales, but the gross margin as well. This is what company alignment looks like and it's driving results.

結果是，Fastenal 的銷售額在 9 月成長了 15% 以上，超過了公司的整體成長速度。這不僅使銷售額顯著提升，而且毛利率也顯著提高。這就是公司協調的樣子，它正在推動成果。

Second thing on this slide, for me, Q3 was a quarter of profitable growth. We achieved double-digit top line growth in the soft market and converted to even faster bottom line growth, net income up 12.6%, EPS up 12.3%.

這張投影片上的第二件事是，對我來說，第三季是獲利成長的一個季度。我們在疲軟的市場中實現了兩位數的營收成長，並轉化為更快的利潤成長，淨收入成長 12.6%，每股盈餘成長 12.3%。

Our margins expanded and costs were well managed, resulting in a 20.7% operating margin. The scenario -- that's really the scenario we aim for. The only cost of this success was really higher performance pay and our team definitely earned that, definitely, get the way of that.

我們的利潤率擴大，成本得到良好管理，營業利潤率達到 20.7%。這個場景——這確實是我們所追求的場景。這次成功的唯一代價實際上是更高的績效工資，我們的團隊絕對值得獲得這個報酬，絕對得到了這個報酬。

This combination of growth, profitability and returns is exactly what we set out to deliver. It speaks to the strength of our strategy and more importantly, to the execution of the Blue Team. It also gives us confidence as we head into the end of the year, knowing that we're growing the right way, profitably and sustainably while creating value for our customers, our employees and our shareholders.

這種成長、獲利和回報的結合正是我們想要實現的。這證明了我們策略的實力，更重要的是，證明了藍隊的執行力。這也讓我們在即將進入年底時充滿信心，因為我們知道我們正在以正確的方式實現盈利和永續發展，同時為我們的客戶、員工和股東創造價值。

Now moving on to slide 6, which highlights our digital engines. This is an area where we've been investing for years. And in Q3, we saw continued momentum. We averaged about 110 FMI signings per day, slightly below last year's pace, but still an extremely strong level of activity. It's over 7,000 weighted FASTBin and FAST devices signed in the quarter, bringing our total installed base to over 134 -- just under 134,000 devices globally, up 8.7% year-over-year.

現在請看投影片 6，投影片重點介紹我們的數位引擎。這是我們多年來一直投資的領域。在第三季度，我們看到了持續的成長勢頭。我們平均每天有大約 110 個 FMI 簽約，略低於去年的速度，但仍然是一個非常強勁的活動水平。本季簽署的加權 FASTBin 和 FAST 設備超過 7,000 台，使我們的總安裝基數達到 134 台以上——全球設備總數略低於 134,000 台，同比增長 8.7%。

The sales through FMI technology represented 45.3% of our total sales in the quarter. This was 43% a year ago. And when you look at the daily sales through FMI, they grew just shy of 18% year-over-year, well above company average and a clear sign that this program is not just expanding, it's accelerating. On the e-business side, we saw 8% growth in daily sales. This includes both e-procurement and e-commerce activity.

透過 FMI 技術實現的銷售額佔本季總銷售額的 45.3%。一年前這一比例為 43%。當您透過 FMI 查看每日銷售額時，會發現其同比增長略低於 18%，遠高於公司平均水平，這清楚地表明該計劃不僅在擴大，而且正在加速。在電子商務方面，我們的日銷售額成長了 8%。這包括電子採購和電子商務活動。

All those numbers is not where we want it, we believe the relaunch of fastenal.com will help improve this growth as we move into 2026. When you combine FMI and e-business, our digital footprint accounted for 61.3% of total sales in the quarter and reflects our long-term strategy to drive growth through technology automation and customer integration.

所有這些數字都不是我們所希望的，我們相信 fastenal.com 的重新推出將有助於在 2026 年實現這一成長。將 FMI 與電子商務結合起來，我們的數位足跡佔本季總銷售額的 61.3%，反映了我們透過技術自動化和客戶整合推動成長的長期策略。

And further -- it really furthers our motto of growth through customer service. So before I hand it up to Sheryl, maybe a quick summary, we're winning with large customers. We're deepening customer relationships with technology and on-site and we're aligning around the right priorities. We did it by investing in the right things, our customers' technology and the development of our people.

而且，它確實進一步體現了我們透過客戶服務實現成長的座右銘。因此，在我將其交給 Sheryl 之前，也許可以簡單總結一下，我們正在贏得大客戶。我們正在透過技術和現場加深客戶關係，並圍繞正確的優先事項進行調整。我們透過投資正確的事情、客戶的技術和員工的發展來做到這一點。

I'm very proud of the teams and how they've embraced and executed the strategy over the last year. And I believe we're really starting to fire on all cylinders. We're aligned, we're adaptive and we're customer-driven. With that, I'll pass over to Sheryl.

我對這些團隊以及他們在過去一年中如何接受和執行這項策略感到非常自豪。我相信我們真的開始全力以赴了。我們團結一致、適應力強、以客戶為導向。說完這些，我就把麥克風交給謝麗爾 (Sheryl)。

Thanks, Jeff, and good morning, everyone. Now I'll turn to slide 7. Sales in the third quarter of 2025 were up 11.7%. That's the strongest quarterly daily sales rate since the first quarter of 2023. Despite sluggish end market demand and caution related to trade policy and tariffs, margin pressures, government shutdowns and the potential for longer than normal holiday shutdowns in the fourth quarter due to the Christmas holiday falling in the middle of the week, regional and other sales leadership expectations are generally favorable for continued strong growth due to share gains.

謝謝，傑夫，大家早安。現在我翻到第 7 張投影片。2025 年第三季的銷售額成長了 11.7%。這是自 2023 年第一季以來最強勁的季度日銷售率。儘管終端市場需求低迷，且貿易政策和關稅、利潤壓力、政府關門以及由於聖誕假期恰逢周中，第四季度假期停工時間可能比正常時間更長，但區域和其他銷售領導層普遍預期，由於市場份額增長，公司將繼續保持強勁增長。

In the absence of much external help, the improvement in our sales reflects two other variables: First, even as the market has stabilized, our comparisons have gotten easier, particularly in the cyclical parts of our business. This factor helped produce our third quarter of growth for fasteners since the first quarter of '23 and acceleration in manufacturing end markets.

在缺乏太多外部幫助的情況下，我們銷售額的成長反映了另外兩個變數：首先，即使市場已經穩定，我們的比較也變得更加容易，特別是在我們業務的周期性部分。這個因素幫助我們實現了自 23 年第一季以來緊固件的第三季成長以及製造終端市場的加速。

Second, contributions from our strong contract signing since early 2024 continue to build. We continue to experience a healthy pace and mix of signings in the third quarter of 2025 and in our total national, regional and government contracts grew in the high single digits.

其次，我們自 2024 年初以來簽署的強勁合約所帶來的貢獻持續增加。2025 年第三季度，我們的簽約速度和組合繼續保持健康，我們的國家、地區和政府合約總額實現了高個位數成長。

The quarterly sales growth rate is a fair representation of our performance, and we did see acceleration through the period. It was another solid self-help driven result in a soft market. The pricing outlook warrants some discussion.

季度銷售成長率公平地反映了我們的業績，並且我們確實看到了這段時期的加速。這是疲軟市場中又一個堅實的自助驅動成果。定價前景值得討論。

Year-to-date, significant tariffs have been applied to products from China as well as steel, including steel-derived products like fasteners on a global basis. We continue our long-term trend on diversifying our supply chain where possible to the size and timing of our suppliers' pricing actions and we added some inventory to our own balance sheet.

今年迄今為止，全球已對來自中國的產品以及鋼鐵（包括緊固件等鋼鐵衍生產品）徵收了高額關稅。我們繼續保持長期趨勢，盡可能實現供應鏈多元化，以適應供應商定價行動的規模和時間，並在我們自己的資產負債表中增加了一些庫存。

That said, supply chains have gotten more expensive and a part of our response over time has been incremental pricing. We have been proactively engaging with our customers for several months. We measure price on the sale of identical parts to the same customers in both periods. This represents approximately 50% of our business, and we refer to this as like-for-like pricing.

話雖如此，供應鏈的成本已經變得越來越高，而我們隨著時間的推移採取的應對措施之一就是逐步提高定價。幾個月來，我們一直積極與客戶接觸。我們衡量兩個時期向同一客戶銷售相同零件的價格。這約占我們業務的 50%，我們稱之為同類定價。

During the third quarter, we implemented one pricing action in the month of August, which addressed the reciprocal tariffs that were finalized in July of 2025. Our previously stated goal was for price to contribute 3% to 5% by the end of the third quarter of 2025. The phased approach to this rollout resulted in 240 to 270 basis points of additional impact in the third quarter with momentum building as we ended the quarter.

在第三季度，我們在 8 月實施了一項定價行動，該行動涉及 2025 年 7 月最終確定的互惠關稅。我們先前提出的目標是到 2025 年第三季末價格貢獻率達到 3% 至 5%。此次分階段推出的舉措在第三季度產生了 240 至 270 個基點的額外影響，並且在本季度末勢頭不斷增強。

Additional pricing actions will be necessary in the fourth quarter of 2025 with the potential to increase the impact of pricing on like-for-like parts to be in a range of 3.5% to 5.5% depending on where the tariff litigation ultimately settles and the pace and execution of our actions. Our revised goal for pricing on like-for-like parts in the fourth quarter of 2025 reflects the reduction from our previously stated goal of 5% to 8%.

2025 年第四季將需要採取額外的定價行動，這可能會將同類零件的定價影響提高到 3.5% 至 5.5% 的範圍內，具體取決於關稅訴訟最終解決的位置以及我們行動的速度和執行情況。我們對 2025 年第四季同類零件定價的修訂目標反映了我們先前提出的 5% 至 8% 的目標的下降。

The other 50% of parts sold to customers exist in the current period, but do not exist in the prior period, making it hard to measure price impact on that group. That said, it has to be acknowledged that had we sold that part to that customer in the prior period, it would have been likely sold for less due to inflation.

銷售給客戶的另外 50% 的零件存在於當前期間，但不存在於前一期間，因此很難衡量價格對該群體的影響。話雖如此，必須承認，如果我們在前期將零件賣給該客戶，由於通貨膨脹，其售價可能會更低。

Therefore, in periods of inflation, there is an inherent price component that flows into share contribution. It is likely pricing is contributing to share contribution in the range of 1% to 2%. We are encouraged by the easier comparisons, the improved sentiment and particularly our internal momentum. That said, we have limited visibility and share our customers' uncertainty over how current trade policy may impact demand in the fourth quarter of 2025.

因此，在通貨膨脹時期，有一個固有的價格成分流入股票貢獻。定價可能對股票貢獻產生 1% 至 2% 的貢獻。更容易的比較、更好的情緒以及特別是我們的內在動力令我們感到鼓舞。話雖如此，我們的預見性有限，而且與客戶一樣，對當前貿易政策將如何影響 2025 年第四季的需求感到不確定。

However, Fastenal has historically been able to win market share during periods of disruption on the strength of our nimble sales, our frugal and adaptive culture and the weight of the technologies and global supply chain resources we can apply to finding solutions to customers' challenges. That is our expectation in the current environment.

然而，Fastenal 歷來能夠在市場動盪時期贏得市場份額，這得益於我們靈活的銷售能力、節儉且適應性強的企業文化，以及我們能夠應用於尋找解決客戶挑戰方案的技術和全球供應鏈資源。這是我們在當前環境下的期望。

Now turning to slide 8. Operating margin in the third quarter of 2025 was 20.7%. This is up 40 basis points year-over-year. Gross margin in the third quarter of 2025 was 45.3%, up 40 basis points from the year ago period. The improvement was primarily driven by our fastener expansion project, other supplier focused initiatives and improvements in customer and supplier incentives.

現在翻到第 8 張投影片。2025年第三季營業利益率為20.7%。這比去年同期上漲了 40 個基點。2025年第三季毛利率為45.3%，較去年同期上升40個基點。這項改善主要得益於我們的緊固件擴充項目、其他以供應商為中心的措施以及客戶和供應商激勵措施的改善。

These benefits were partly offset by continued customer mix dilution and higher organizational overhead cost. Price/cost had a neutral impact on our gross profit percentage in the third quarter of 2025. We anticipate our gross profit percentage for 2025 will be relatively flat with 2024.

這些好處被持續的客戶組合稀釋和更高的組織管理成本部分抵消。價格/成本對我們 2025 年第三季的毛利率影響為中性。我們預計 2025 年的毛利率將與 2024 年基本持平。

This will be dependent upon our effectiveness in managing price cost and the degree of macro improvement will also influence this scenario. SG&A was 24.6% of sales in the third quarter of 2025, which was consistent with the year ago period. Employee-related expenses increased faster than the rate of growth in sales, largely due to the reset of bonus and commission programs due to improved financial performance.

這將取決於我們管理價格成本的有效性，而宏觀改善的程度也會影響這種情況。2025 年第三季度，銷售、一般及行政費用佔銷售額的 24.6%，與去年同期持平。員工相關費用的成長速度快於銷售額的成長速度，這主要是由於財務表現改善而重新設定了獎金和佣金計畫。

This increase was partially offset by leverage achieved in all other SG&A costs. We continue to invest in key areas of our business to support growth while managing other costs more tightly to reflect the sluggish business conditions.

這一增長被所有其他銷售、一般和行政費用中實現的槓桿作用部分抵消。我們繼續投資於業務的關鍵領域以支持成長，同時更嚴格地管理其他成本以反映低迷的業務狀況。

Putting it all together, we reported third quarter 2025 EPS of $0.29 per share up from $0.26 per share in the third quarter of 2024. Reminder, we executed a 2:1 stock split in May of 2025. The prior year EPS has been adjusted for this change.

綜合所有因素，我們報告 2025 年第三季每股收益為 0.29 美元，高於 2024 年第三季的每股 0.26 美元。提醒一下，我們在 2025 年 5 月進行了 2:1 的股票分割。上一年每股收益已根據這一變化進行了調整。

Now turning to Slide 9. We generated $386.9 million in operating cash in the third quarter of 2025 or 115.3% in net income. Despite our investment in inventory, cash generation was above traditional third quarter levels.

現在翻到幻燈片 9。我們在 2025 年第三季產生了 3.869 億美元的營運現金，即淨收入的 115.3%。儘管我們對庫存進行了投資，但現金產生量仍高於傳統的第三季水準。

The five-year average from 2020 to 2024 was 104.2%. We remain comfortable with the cash generation of our model and continue to carry a conservatively capitalized balance sheet with quarter-end debt being 4.8% of total capital.

2020年至2024年的五年平均值為104.2%。我們對我們的模型的現金產生仍然感到滿意，並繼續保持保守的資本化資產負債表，季度末債務佔總資本的 4.8%。

Accounts receivable were up 12.2%, reflecting sales growth, relatively faster growth to larger customers that tend to carry longer terms and an uptick in quarter end deferred payments from our customers. Inventories were up 10.5%, which was an improvement from the preceding quarter.

應收帳款成長了 12.2%，反映了銷售額的成長、傾向於長期付款的大客戶相對較快的成長以及客戶季度末延期付款的增加。庫存增加10.5%，較上一季改善。

We have increased inventory as part of our effort to improve product availability in our selling locations and improved picking efficiency in our hubs. We have added stock to support customer growth, and we accelerated some inventory scheduled for future delivery in the current periods ahead of tariffs.

我們增加了庫存，以努力提高銷售點的產品供應量並提高樞紐的揀貨效率。我們增加了庫存以支持客戶成長，並在關稅生效前加速了一些計劃在當前時期交付的庫存。

Inventory growth may remain elevated in the fourth quarter of 2025 as we continue to navigate tariffs and more inflation builds in. Accounts payable were up 14.3%, primarily reflecting the increase in inventories. Net capital spending in the third quarter of 2025 was $54.7 million, down slightly from $55.8 million in the third quarter of 2024.

隨著我們繼續應對關稅和進一步通膨，2025 年第四季庫存成長可能仍將保持在高位。應付帳款成長14.3%，主要反映庫存增加。2025 年第三季的淨資本支出為 5,470 萬美元，略低於 2024 年第三季的 5,580 萬美元。

This increase is consistent with our expectations for the full year where we anticipate capital spending in the range of $235 million to $255 million, which is up from $214 million in 2024. This increase is from higher FMI device spending, distribution center outlays to reflect spending on our Utah and Atlanta hubs and automated picking additions across our hub network, higher IT spend which includes projects aimed at developing additional digital capabilities and higher spend on vehicles.

這一成長與我們對全年的預期一致，我們預計全年資本支出將在 2.35 億美元至 2.55 億美元之間，高於 2024 年的 2.14 億美元。這一成長源於更高的 FMI 設備支出、配送中心支出（反映了我們在猶他州和亞特蘭大樞紐的支出以及整個樞紐網路的自動揀選增加）、更高的 IT 支出（包括旨在開發更多數位功能的項目）以及更高的車輛支出。

The increased spend was partially offset by an increase in proceeds from sales of vehicles and properties. With that, I will turn it over to Dan.

支出的增加部分被汽車和房地產銷售收益的增加所抵銷。說完這些，我就把麥克風交給丹。

Thanks, Sheryl, and good morning, everybody. And I'll sit in thinking, as Jeff and Sheryl were talking, what's kind of nice for me right now is we put up a great quarter. And Jeff and Sheryl, a few quarters ago, would have been really nervous about what they just did, like they did a wonderful job talking about the quarter, talking about where we're going and giving insight to our shareholders on the call as well as our employees on the call. I think -- as I was reading through some stuff last night, a few things dawned on me. One was, it was 10 years ago today that we put out the third quarter of 2015.

謝謝，謝麗爾，大家早安。我會坐下來思考，就像傑夫和謝麗爾談話時一樣，現在對我來說最棒的事情是我們度過了一個很棒的季度。幾個季度前，傑夫和謝麗爾會對他們剛才所做的事情感到非常緊張，但他們在談論本季度、談論我們的發展方向以及在電話會議上向我們的股東和員工提供見解方面做得非常出色。我想——當我昨晚閱讀一些內容時，我突然意識到了一些事情。一是，十年前的今天，我們發布了 2015 年第三季的業績。

And the PMI was plus [50]. We've gone through a year where we've seen diminishing success and the afternoon before I've been named President and CEO. And the first message I had to deliver was a tough quarter. Our sales went negative in September. And as it turned out, they were negative for the balance of the year.

PMI 為正[50]我們經歷了一年來業績下滑的時期，就在前一天下午，我被任命為總裁兼執行長。我要傳達的第一個訊息是，這是一個艱難的季度。九月我們的銷售額出現負成長。事實證明，今年的餘額為負數。

And we needed to kind of regroup and figure out where we're going, not the co sub today. And there were some simple themes that began to emerge when we settle down. It's a great organization, great capabilities, great people, but we lost our way a little bit.

我們需要重新集結並弄清楚我們要去哪裡，而不是今天的共同潛艇。當我們安定下來時，一些簡單的主題開始浮現。這是一個偉大的組織，擁有強大的能力和優秀的人才，但我們有點迷失了方向。

Some other things that emerged over time was the idea of thinking big about where you're going, taking steps towards the future, being willing to change and never cling to the past, because it's comfortable and safe, figure out where you're going and get there.

隨著時間的推移，也出現了一些其他的想法，例如要大膽思考你的目標，向未來邁進，願意改變，永遠不要執著於過去，因為過去很舒適、很安全，弄清楚你的目標，然後到達那裡。

It eventually chimed into some mantras, find great people, ask them to join, give them a reason to stay. And we just -- Jeff just introduced the new one, I liked his phrase, plan the work, work the plan. I don't know if that's a Canadian thing or a hockey thing. It -- I don't think it is there with growth in customer service, but it's pretty darn good, and I love it. I would like to say thank you to the Blue team for the quarter we just put up -- frankly, the last two quarters we just put up.

它最終形成了一些口頭禪，找到優秀的人才，邀請他們加入，給他們一個留下來的理由。我們剛剛——傑夫剛剛介紹了新的方案，我喜歡他的說法，計劃工作，執行計劃。我不知道這是加拿大的特色還是曲棍球的特色。我認為它並沒有隨著客戶服務的成長而成長，但它確實非常好，我喜歡它。我想對藍隊表示感謝，感謝他們剛剛完成的這個季度——坦白說，感謝他們剛剛完成的最後兩個季度。

It was nice couple of quarters above $2 billion, where we're enjoying growth again, but I would like to give special mention to several people to Bill Drazkowski. Thanks for thinking about the organization first and stepping into the role of leading our national accounts, our contract sellers team 2.5 years ago, a big part of the turnaround is the work of your team in collaboration with the network they serve.

有幾季的銷售額超過 20 億美元，我們再次享受成長，這是一個不錯的成績，但我要特別提到 Bill Drazkowski 等人。感謝您首先考慮組織，並在 2.5 年前擔任領導我們國家帳戶和合約銷售團隊的角色，轉變的很大一部分是您的團隊與他們所服務的網絡合作完成的工作。

To Casey Miller, thanks for taking a big load on your shoulders when Bill stepped out of his role. I'm glad we were able to add some resources here in the last three, four months to assist the effort. But thanks for everything you've done. So Tony Borsa, thank you for the improvements we've seen in our supply chain over the last 1.5 years.

致凱西米勒，感謝你在比爾卸任後承擔了巨大的責任。我很高興我們能夠在過去的三、四個月裡增加一些資源來協助這項工作。但感謝您所做的一切。所以，Tony Borsa，感謝您在過去一年半看到我們的供應鏈的進步。

It helped us tremendously navigating the tariffs of 2025 because it gave us a little bit of a cushion to make mistakes or as we did here in the third quarter to delay a pricing action because of some uncertainty going on with, okay, what are the court is going to do, what's going to happen next, heck, even over the weekend, there was some noise about what's going on, but the work of our supply chain team gave us a little wiggle room in which to navigate.

它極大地幫助我們應對 2025 年的關稅，因為它給了我們一點緩衝，避免犯錯，或者像我們在第三季度所做的那樣，因為一些不確定性而推遲定價行動，比如法院將做什麼、接下來會發生什麼，甚至在周末，也有一些關於正在發生的事情的噪音，但我們的供應鏈團隊的工作給了我們一點迴旋地。

And then finally, to Jeff Watts. He stepped into a role, the first thing you did is our sales team pursuing a common goal, challenge us to maybe stop being stupid some of the time on the things we were doing and remember, we all serve our customers and we serve each other. Nobody serves us. It's never about us. It's never about I., it's about the customers and the market we serve.

最後，感謝 Jeff Watts。當他擔任職務時，所做的第一件事就是讓我們的銷售團隊追求一個共同的目標，挑戰我們，讓我們在做某些事情時不再犯傻，記住，我們都為客戶服務，我們互相服務。沒人為我們服務。這從來都與我們無關。這從來都與我無關，而是與我們所服務的客戶和市場有關。

The -- I did like the other quote Jeff had in his prepared remarks, drive growth through technology. A decade ago on that call, we couldn't have made that statement because we didn't have a technology to present -- we didn't have a technology team to present. And my complements to John Soderberg on your efforts over the last decade to get us to where we are today and the resources we have to assist our sales team.

我確實喜歡傑夫在準備好的發言中所說的另一句話，透過科技推動成長。在十年前的那次電話會議中，我們無法做出這樣的聲明，因為我們沒有技術可以展示——我們沒有技術團隊可以展示。我對 John Soderberg 表示讚賞，感謝他在過去十年中為使我們達到今天的水平所做的努力，以及為協助我們的銷售團隊所提供的資源。

The page 10 of the field message on third quarter, talks about an item that we mentioned actually on page two of our earnings release. If you look at page 2 of the earnings release, we've historically talked about three categories of products: fasteners, safety and other. Within fasteners, we further break it down to OEM fasteners and MRO fasteners.

第三季現場消息的第 10 頁討論了我們實際上在收益報告第二頁中提到的一項內容。如果您查看收益報告的第 2 頁，我們過去曾討論過三類產品：緊固件、安全產品和其他產品。在緊固件中，我們進一步將其細分為 OEM 緊固件和 MRO 緊固件。

So we started doing that some years ago, and we did it by guesstimating the mix. We didn't have great reporting to tell us, but we did know that if it's a manufacturing transaction, we aren't charging sales tax, it's an OEM fastener and so in there, you'd see about 19.8% of our sales, our -- an OEM fastener. That's really predicated on looking at the US business and estimating it.

因此，我們幾年前就開始這樣做了，我們透過估計混合物來做到這一點。我們沒有很好的報告告訴我們，但我們確實知道，如果這是一項製造交易，我們不會收取銷售稅，這是一個 OEM 緊固件，因此在那裡，你會看到我們大約 19.8% 的銷售額，我們的 - OEM 緊固件。這實際上是基於對美國業務的觀察和評估。

On page 10 of the foot book, what you see is our folks, we have better reporting systems now, and we can look at things differently, and we can look at it globally rather than kind of faking it because we're looking at nontech sales. That [19.8%] is actually 20.9%.

在本書的第 10 頁上，您可以看到我們的員工，我們現在擁有更好的報告系統，我們可以從不同的角度看待事物，我們可以從全球角度看待它，而不是因為我們專注於非技術銷售而假裝它。那個 [19.8%] 其實是 20.9%。

And that's looking at it globally in places like Mexico bring the average up in -- as we've gone through the year, one of the things we've talked about is our Americas business outside the US, particularly our business in Mexico is having a tough year.

從全球來看，墨西哥等地的平均水平有所提高——正如我們在過去一年中討論的那樣，我們談論的事情之一是我們在美國以外的美洲業務，特別是我們在墨西哥的業務今年正經歷艱難。

That business is more heavily skewed towards OEM business, especially OEM fasteners than the rest of the company. And when you have a sub-50 ISM, it beats them up, but we have great people down there, doing great things, and I know we're building for the future, and that future will shine through.

與公司的其他業務相比，該業務更側重於 OEM 業務，尤其是 OEM 緊固件。當 ISM 低於 50 時，他們會很吃虧，但我們那裡有優秀的人才，做著偉大的事情，我知道我們正在為未來而建設，而未來將會閃耀光芒。

What we learned in this process of really going through. We want to understand the non-fastener business because we had no visibility to that in the past. If you'd ask me six months ago, what percentage of our business do you think is OEM. I would say, it's probably about 30%. And the difference between the 20 and the 30 would be -- about half of it would be metalworking and abrasives and half of it would be everything else.

我們在這個真正經歷的過程中學到了什麼。我們希望了解非緊固件業務，因為過去我們對此一無所知。如果你六個月前問我，你認為我們的業務中有多少比例是 OEM。我想說，大概是30%左右。20 和 30 之間的差異在於——其中大約一半是金屬加工和磨料，另一半是其他一切。

As you can see from the information here, I was woefully understated in my number. And so as we move towards year-end and each of the steps between now and then and ask I have with the analyst community, when you're having conversations with Sheryl and Kevin about our monthly sales, about the follow-up of this call. Challenge us on what you want to see from this information.

從這裡的資訊中您可以看到，我的數字被嚴重低估了。因此，當我們接近年底時，從現在到那時的每個步驟，我都會與分析師社區討論，當你與謝麗爾和凱文談論我們的月銷售額時，談論這次電話會議的後續情況。向我們提出挑戰，告訴我們您想從這些資訊中看到什麼。

It's our intent to replace that table on page 2 -- or to supplement that table on page 2, I'm not sure which at this point, with a thought process of our business of, here's our direct business, i.e., OEM. Here's our indirect business, i.e., MRO and give better visibility to what we're doing and where is our success taking us as we move forward.

我們的目的是替換第 2 頁上的那個表格 - 或補充第 2 頁上的那個表格，目前我還不確定是哪一個，考慮到我們的業務，這是我們的直接業務，即 OEM。這是我們的間接業務，即 MRO，可以更好地了解我們正在做的事情以及我們的成功將帶我們走向何方。

We're going to move forward, I'm -- we can switch over to the questions. I've used up my 10 minutes. And I would -- and as mentioned, please limit your questions to one with a follow-up. Thank you.

我們將繼續討論，我們可以轉到問題部分。我已經用完10分鐘了。而我會 — — 正如所提到的，請將您的問題限制為一個後續問題。謝謝。

(Operator Instructions)

（操作員指示）

David Manthey from Baird.

來自貝爾德的 David Manthey。

All right, thank you. Good morning, everyone. My question is on pricing out of the gate here. So the gross margin looked good. I assume there's no issue with you passing on price. But with the pricing being below expectations, I was wondering if you could just talk about the mechanics there the housing-wise that is panning out slower than you originally thought?

好的，謝謝。大家早安。我的問題是關於這裡的初始定價。因此毛利率看起來不錯。我認為您轉嫁價格是沒有問題的。但由於定價低於預期，我想知道您是否可以談談住房方面的機制，其進展比您最初想像的要慢？

Dave, good morning, as I mentioned, we -- when we -- we were stepping into the quarter, we thought our cadence could be a little different than it played out and every time we have a conversation like this, we're answering based on what we know at that point in time.

戴夫，早安，正如我所提到的，當我們進入本季度時，我們認為我們的節奏可能與實際情況略有不同，每次我們進行這樣的對話時，我們都會根據當時所知道的情況來回答。

And as you know, it's a pretty fluid environment. We ended up delaying it about 30 days, our third quarter step and in doing that, two things happen. Obviously, the benefit or the impact on the quarter is muted. And however, by delaying it 30 days, I think we have better discussions with our customers.

如你所知，這是一個相當不穩定的環境。我們最終將其推遲了大約 30 天，即我們的第三季步驟，在此過程中發生了兩件事。顯然，這對本季的益處或影響並不大。然而，透過推遲 30 天，我認為我們可以與客戶進行更好的討論。

We had better options for them to have. I believe when you're pushing things too fast, you kind of negotiate differently. You have discussions that are different. And there's probably some territory you'd see in that discussion that 30 days later when you have a little more insight and can have a more thoughtful conversation, you're probably more effective at your pricing, but more importantly, you're more effective at providing counter options to avoid part of the price through substitution, but it did slow down our cadence in Q3.

我們有更好的選擇給他們。我相信，當你把事情推進得太快時，你的談判方式就會有所不同。你們的討論有所不同。在那次討論中，你可能會發現一些領域，30 天后，當你有了更多的了解，可以進行更深思熟慮的對話時，你的定價可能會更有效，但更重要的是，你可以更有效地提供應對方案，以避免通過替代來降低部分價格，但它確實減慢了我們第三季度的節奏。

As we step into Q4, as Sheryl mentioned, we've lowered that number a little bit. Part of it when we gave that number for Q4 in the July time frame, part of it is you're doing the straight-line look and you don't really know what it is.

正如謝麗爾所提到的，當我們進入第四季時，我們已經將這個數字降低了一點。部分原因是當我們給出 7 月第四季的數字時，部分原因是您正在進行直線觀察，但您並不真正知道它是多少。

The only difference between now and then is we know what we know now, and that is it's going to be a little bit lower than we thought, which frankly, is a good thing because it tells me we've probably put in more substitutions in place.

現在和那時唯一的區別是我們知道我們現在所知道的事情，那就是它會比我們想像的要低一點，坦白說，這是一件好事，因為它告訴我我們可能已經採取了更多的替代措施。

And I cautioned in July about we might get a little bit of a margin squeeze in the third quarter. Part of the reason for putting that message in the call is I thought it could happen, and I wanted everyone of the Fastenal employees to hear it.

我在七月就警告說，第三季我們的利潤率可能會略有下降。在電話中傳達這一訊息的部分原因是我認為它可能會發生，我希望 Fastenal 的每一位員工都能聽到它。

I'm going to make the same comment again. We can get a little margin squeeze in the fourth quarter because costs are continuing to rise, we've had some wiggle room because of what we talked about on the expansion of fastener products that we stock in inventory that gave us some margin on some other products unrelated to the price, but we could get a little squeezed in the fourth quarter. We're going to work to avoid it like ever. And -- but we think the number is a little bit lower. Most of that is because we have better information now than we did three months ago.

我將再次發表同樣的評論。由於成本持續上升，我們的利潤率在第四季度可能會縮減，由於我們談到擴大庫存緊固件產品，我們有一定的迴旋餘地，這為我們提供了與價格無關的一些其他產品的利潤，但我們在第四季度可能會受到一些擠壓。我們將盡一切努力避免這種情況發生。但我們認為這個數字要低一些。主要是因為我們現在擁有的資訊比三個月前更好。

Got it, thanks, Dan and so when you're saying the numbers coming in a little bit lower, you're talking about the fourth quarter down from the 5% to 8% you thought previously. But is there a change in how you're thinking about peak pricing ultimately? Or does that 5% to 8% just get pushed into 2026 at some point?

明白了，謝謝，丹，所以當你說數字稍微下降時，你指的是第四季度從你之前認為的 5% 下降到 8%。但是，您對峰值定價的看法最終會改變嗎？或者說這 5% 到 8% 的成長率會推遲到 2026 年的某個時候嗎？

I don't know if we know that answer at this point, Dave. There's going to be things that happen. We're going to do pricing actions every quarter. If the situation dictates it, the optimist in me would say that things are coming. We had an economist come in and talk to our board the other night, and she was running through some of that stuff.

我不知道我們現在是否知道答案，戴夫。一定會有事情發生。我們將每季採取定價行動。如果情況需要的話，我內心的樂觀主義者會說事情會發生。前幾天晚上，我們請了一位經濟學家來和我們的董事會交談，她談到了其中的一些內容。

And and talking about what their expectation is coming into 2026. And as you asked 10 economist the question you're going to get 12 opinions. But I think there is a feel and I think there's a political will, that's some of this stuff calm down. Obviously, over the weekend, there was some noise going different directions. We'll see how that plays out as we move into November.

並談論他們對 2026 年的期望。當你向 10 位經濟學家提出這個問題時，你會得到 12 種意見。但我認為有一種感覺，而且我認為有一種政治意願，那就是讓一些事情平靜下來。顯然，週末出現了一些來自不同方向的聲音。進入十一月後，我們將會看到事情會如何發展。

The optimist in me would say maybe the point we get to by -- as we exit the year is the point we've gotten to. And now the real challenge is the fatigue on pricing is there. doesn't mean there will be some price changes after the first of the year because I believe there will be. There might be some that didn't agree to a price change three months ago or six months ago that we have to go back and have that discussion again.

我內心的樂觀主義者會說，也許我們在年底達到的水平就是我們已經達到的水平。現在真正的挑戰是定價方面的疲勞。但這並不意味著年初之後價格會有所變化，因為我相信會有變化。有些人可能在三個月前或六個月前不同意價格變動，所以我們必須回去重新討論。

Hopefully, the end result is we're better at pivoting source of supply and the product served because I believe we're better at that than our peers because we have direct conversations with our customers and we have great line of sight to supply chain.

希望最終結果是我們能夠更好地調整供應源和所提供的產品，因為我相信我們在這方面比我們的同行做得更好，因為我們可以直接與客戶對話，並且我們對供應鏈有很好的了解。

Ryan Merkelm, William Blair.

瑞安·默克爾姆、威廉·布萊爾。

Hey everyone, thanks for the question. The question wanted to start with the bonus reset. Can you just explain why was the bonus reset so much larger in 3Q versus 2Q?

大家好，感謝您的提問。問題想從獎金重置開始。您能解釋一下為什麼第三季的獎金重置比第二季大得多嗎？

So there's a few aspects to that. One is the -- part of its bonus reset in early August, when we had our -- after we've got in the July numbers, we had a bit of a discussion with our leadership team that said, hey, SG&A is getting ahead of where we need to be, and there's a number of things that kick in. In fact, this morning on the -- we always have a call at 07:00 in the morning with our leadership team.

這其中涉及幾個面向。一個是 8 月初的獎金重置部分，當時我們得到了 7 月份的數據，之後我們與領導團隊進行了一些討論，他們說，嘿，銷售、一般和行政費用已經超出了我們需要的水平，並且有很多事情正在發生。事實上，今天早上——我們總是在早上 7 點與我們的領導團隊通電話。

And Sheryl runs through some analysis she provides for our Board and shares it with our leaders. And in that discussion, I was doing some ad hoc calculating and for the Fastenal leadership listing, I was wrong on my ad hoc because I was doing it on the fly.

謝麗爾 (Sheryl) 對她為我們的董事會提供的一些分析進行了闡述，並與我們的領導分享。在那次討論中，我做了一些臨時計算，對於 Fastenal 領導層名單，我的臨時計算是錯誤的，因為我是在匆忙中進行的。

Matt Ransburg, reminded me afterwards that, hey, Dan, we split our stock. So your math was off by a factor of two. So if you think about it on a district manager, by district manager basis, we spent about $8,000 a month too much because that would have gotten us closer to $0.30 if you do the reverse engineering on the math. And our district managers have been under incredible pressure for the last two years to manage expenses. They probably had some pay increases they needed to do.

馬特·蘭斯堡 (Matt Ransburg) 後來提醒我，嘿，丹，我們分割股票吧。所以你的數學計算結果有兩倍的誤差。因此，如果你從地區經理的角度考慮，按地區經理計算，我們每月多花了大約 8,000 美元，因為如果你進行逆向工程計算，我們會發現這更接近 0.30 美元。過去兩年來，我們的地區經理在管理費用方面承受著巨大的壓力。他們可能需要加薪。

And there's probably some pay increases that were occurring as we were going through -- I'm talking about base pay that we're going through the year. And we probably underestimated that a little bit as we went through the second quarter and we were realizing more success.

在我們經歷的過程中，可能會出現一些薪資上漲——我指的是我們今年的基本工資。當我們進入第二季並取得更多成功時，我們可能低估了這一點。

There was also some changes that we talked about on some pay programs we were making. And most -- those programs center on the field, and they center on at what line you're measuring for pay purposes. Are you measuring at the sales line, the gross margin line, the operating margin line, what we internally refer to as the ROA, which is our internal P&L and asset document. It was a little bit more of an impact from some of those changes because we were discovering success than maybe we estimated.

我們也討論了我們正在實施的一些薪酬計劃的一些變化。大多數 — — 這些項目都以現場為中心，並以你為支付目的而衡量的標準為中心。您是否在衡量銷售線、毛利率線、營業利潤線，也就是我們內部所稱的 ROA，這是我們的內部損益表和資產文件。其中一些變化的影響更大一些，因為我們發現的成功可能比我們估計的要多。

And then -- but the final mechanical piece is we have a lot of programs that are linked to performance of P&L growth and we pay out a meaningful piece and you know how our proxy works, we all get a piece of the earnings growth.

然後——但最後的機械部分是，我們有很多與損益增長表現掛鉤的計劃，我們支付了一筆有意義的款項，你知道我們的代理是如何運作的，我們都能獲得一部分收益增長。

We had a few more months of success because we have better participation across the network. So you had a few more district managers that programs are kicking in district or programs are kicking in. And we underestimated a number a little bit. If there's nothing in there that I'm going to lose sleep over other than cautioning already in August to slow that down because it doesn't do anything for Q3. It really doesn't do much for Q4.

由於整個網路的參與度更高，我們又取得了幾個月的成功。因此，您有更多的地區經理，他們負責啟動地區計劃或啟動計劃。我們稍微低估了一個數字。如果這裡面沒有什麼讓我失眠的事情，那麼除了在 8 月就已經警告要放慢速度，因為它對第三季度沒有任何作用之外。這對第四季確實沒什麼幫助。

It really matters for Q1 of '26 because it's a big ship and it requires a little more time to do some steering on the rudder. But part of it was there was some base pay changes going on. We probably underestimated a little bit the impact of some of the new programs. And then the rest is we're finding success and we're paying and we think that's a great thing.

這對 26 年第一季來說確實很重要，因為這是一艘大船，需要更多時間來掌舵。但部分原因是基本工資發生了一些變化。我們可能低估了一些新計劃的影響。剩下的就是我們獲得了成功並且付出了努力，我們認為這是一件很棒的事情。

Okay. Yeah, makes sense. And then the follow-up is SG&A in the fourth quarter. Is it going to be similar 11% year-over-year growth that we saw in 3Q?

好的。是的，有道理。接下來是第四季的銷售、一般及行政費用 (SG&A)。它是否會達到我們在第三季度看到的 11% 的同比增長率？

Sorry, I'll defer that a little bit to some of the follow-up questions when you're going through your model. But we anticipate from the profit growth perspective, that will continue to kick in until we anniversary that as we move into the second quarter of next year, but you're going to see similar expense growth, what you're thinking.

抱歉，當您瀏覽模型時，我會將這個問題推遲到一些後續問題。但我們從利潤成長的角度來看，這種情況將持續下去，直到我們進入明年第二季度，但你會看到類似的費用成長，正如你所想的那樣。

Tommy Moll, Stephens.

湯米·莫爾，史蒂芬斯。

Good morning and thank you for taking my question.

早上好，感謝您回答我的問題。

Good morning.

早安.

I want to start off with a question on demand. Clearly, the broader market conditions remain sluggish. You called out trade and policy uncertainty as reasons. I'm curious what you're picking up from the field? Does it seem like if we had greater policy uncertainty, there's some pent-up demand that can unlock relatively quickly or is it more -- we're already talking about calendar issues in December production plans feel pretty well set and even best case, we're probably talking about a 2026 potential tailwind here.

我想先問一個問題。顯然，整體市場狀況依然低迷。您指出貿易和政策不確定性是原因。我很好奇你從現場得到了什麼？是不是如果我們有更大的政策不確定性，一些被壓抑的需求就可以相對較快地釋放出來，或者更多——我們已經在討論 12 月份的日曆問題，生產計劃感覺已經確定，甚至在最好的情況下，我們可能正在談論 2026 年的潛在順風。

Yeah, I would just add into that, that we're not seeing a lot of, obviously, the tailwind today. And from everything we're hearing from our customers, everything we see we're probably looking into -- obviously, into '26. We're not going to get that in Q4.

是的，我只想補充一點，今天我們顯然沒有看到太多順風。從我們從客戶那裡聽到的一切以及我們看到的一切來看，我們可能正在研究——顯然，是研究 26 年。我們不會在第四季實現這一目標。

But most of -- the nice part about it, almost all of our customers are telling us the same thing that this year is what it is, but they're spending even in Mexico, they're really looking at that Q1, Q2 time frame. And actually, Dan mentioned the economist, everybody is right and they said the same thing to us so.

但大多數 — — 好的方面是，幾乎所有客戶都告訴我們同一件事，今年的情況就是這樣，但他們甚至在墨西哥消費，他們真正關注的是第一季、第二季的時間範圍。事實上，丹提到了經濟學家，每個人都是對的，他們對我們說了同樣的話。

Thank you. And then just a question on the fastener stocking initiatives that you've talked about? Maybe this is too simplistic, but is the rationale here share gain through better service levels? And if that's a fair characterization and everything goes right, should this be accretive to ROIC? And what's a reasonable time frame for that to unfold?

謝謝。然後，您還有一個關於您所談到的緊固件庫存計劃的問題嗎？這也許太簡單，但其基本原理是透過更好的服務水準來獲取市場份額嗎？如果這是一個公平的描述並且一切順利，這是否應該增加 ROIC？那麼實現這目標的合理時間框架是怎麼樣的呢？

Well, I'll talk about the share gain on it. And really, if you think of it this way, we we got a little tied on our inventory models. And what it did was it made it very difficult in the field for the branches to get standard inventory. They weren't efficient at it. And we started to lose some share.

好吧，我來談談它的份額收益。事實上，如果你這樣想，我們的庫存模型就有點束縛了。結果是，它使得分支機構很難在現場獲得標準庫存。他們做這件事效率不高。我們的市佔率開始下降。

So we brought back the standard inventory that we were missing. We've actually increased it and it just made it a lot more efficient for our branches and our customers to get that inventory. I'll let Dan answer the second part.

因此，我們恢復了缺少的標準庫存。我們實際上已經增加了庫存，這使得我們的分店和客戶能夠更有效率地獲取庫存。我請丹回答第二部分。

On the ROIC, actually, the Phase 1 and most of the Phase I is accretive to ROIC. And because what we -- what happened is, to Jeff's point, having the inventory on the shelf. I just meant that if it's easier for our folks to perform, it's easier for us to folks to give a quick answer to a customer of, yes, I can get it in as opposed to doing a sourcing exercise and then calling the customer back because a lot of things can happen during that sourcing exercise like maybe talking to other suppliers because they need stuff. And if I can just answer the question, it puts it to bed. So there's a capture of market share you get.

就投資報酬率而言，實際上，第一階段和第一階段的大部分內容都會增加投資報酬率。因為我們——正如傑夫所說，發生的事情就是將庫存放在貨架上。我只是想說，如果我們的員工更容易執行，我們就可以更容易地向客戶快速答复，是的，我可以得到它，而不是進行採購練習，然後再給客戶回電話，因為在採購練習期間可能會發生很多事情，比如可能與其他供應商交談，因為他們需要東西。如果我能回答這個問題，它就解決了。這樣你就佔領了一定的市佔率。

The other thing that happens is when you buy it in an orderly fashion, you always purchase it better. And so we're getting a nice return. When I look at the inventory dollars we added, the return on that is much better than ROIC as a company.

另一件事是，當你有秩序地購買時，你總是會買到更好的東西。因此我們獲得了豐厚的回報。當我看到我們增加的庫存美元時，我發現其回報率比公司投入資本回報率 (ROIC) 要好得多。

The reason I say accretive and not ridiculously accretive is there's always a trade-off on efficiency. So we've given Tony and his team the ask of saying, keep looking at this kind of stuff. Bob Kierlin always taught us, it's not about the P&L, it's not about the pretax, the percentage of sales.

我之所以說是增值而不是荒謬的增值，是因為效率總是需要權衡的。因此，我們要求托尼和他的團隊繼續關注這類東西。鮑伯‧基爾林 (Bob Kierlin) 總是教導我們，重要的不是損益表，也不是稅前收入或銷售百分比。

Now that really matters, don't get me wrong, it's about the returns. That's what our long term. That's what our shareholders will reward us for is the returns on the investments on the decisions we're making. And if we're adding inventory and it's enhancing our returns. We will continue to add inventory, even if we add a few days to our inventory.

現在這真的很重要，不要誤會我的意思，這關乎回報。這就是我們的長期目標。我們的股東將因我們所做的決策而獲得的投資回報而給予我們回報。如果我們增加庫存，這將提高我們的回報。我們會繼續增加庫存，即使只是增加幾天的庫存。

If we can get a return on that, that's a better use of excess cash than a dividend. A dividend is you're throwing in the towel because you have more cash than you can deploy in a useful fashion. And what we've always believed in is that companies that have too much cash and they look for places to deploy it, usually destroy shareholder value. They don't create it. So we would rather dividend everything out unless we have a known need for it and count on future cash flow to fund the ideas that we have.

如果我們能夠獲得回報，那麼這比股息更能有效地利用多餘的現金。紅利意味著你放棄了，因為你擁有的現金多於你能夠以有用方式部署的現金。我們始終堅信，那些擁有過多現金並尋找地方部署這些現金的公司通常會損害股東價值。他們沒有創造它。因此，除非我們確實需要，否則我們寧願將所有資金都分紅，並依靠未來的現金流來資助我們的想法。

Nigel Coe, Wolfe Research.

沃爾夫研究公司的奈傑爾·科伊。

Kevin, I don't know about you, but I'm not hearing you. Not sure your line is not.

凱文，我不知道你的情況，但我聽不到你說話。不確定你的線路是不是這樣。

Hello, can you hear me? Yes, please proceed. Okay, great. Good morning guys. Sorry about that. I'm not sure what happened there. Dan, can you maybe just expand on the price fatigue comments?

你好，你聽得到我說話嗎？是的，請繼續。好的，太好了。大家早安。很抱歉。我不確定那裡發生了什麼事。丹，您能否詳細說明一下有關價格疲勞的評論？

I mean I don't think it's particularly surprising, but I'm just wondering is this really just the uncertainty around tariffs? You mentioned the kind of litigation around that. So is there a sort of a pickup in competition here and you're seeing some of your competitors are not pushing through price perhaps?

我的意思是，我認為這並不特別令人驚訝，但我只是想知道這真的只是關稅的不確定性嗎？您提到了圍繞該問題的訴訟類型。那麼，這裡的競爭是否有所加劇，您是否發現一些競爭對手沒有降低價格？

Our competitors are pushing through price. The marketplace is pushing through price. We actually prefer not to push through price, we prefer to push through growth. We prefer to have conversations about technology we can deploy to your point of use that lowers your consumption, expanding the universe of what we're selling. The price conversation is only about costs are going up in your supply chain and price is how a customer realizes that.

我們的競爭對手正在壓低價格。市場正在推高價格。事實上，我們並不願意提高價格，我們更願意提高成長。我們更願意討論可以部署到您的使用點的技術，以降低您的消耗，並擴大我們銷售的產品範圍。價格對話僅涉及供應鏈中成本的上升，而價格是客戶意識到這一點的方式。

And so we've always been reticent. On the flip side, we have great line of sight to our needs, and we have open candid discussions with our customers about what's happening in their supply chain, and that price is part of it.

因此我們一直保持沉默。另一方面，我們對我們的需求有很好的了解，並且我們與客戶就其供應鏈中發生的事情進行坦誠的討論，而價格是其中的一部分。

The biggest, I think, complexity to the conversation is things like what's the court system going to say about it? What's the pivot in the political wind of chaos or settled down, it isn't so much what the prices reset to. It's -- are the prices done resetting. So customers can make decisions about what they want to do because they know the economics of what they want to do. And in the meantime, what happens is you get kind of a pause.

我認為，對話中最複雜的問題是法院系統會對此作何評論？政治風向的混亂或穩定究竟是支點，與其說是物價重新回到何種水準。價格已經重置了嗎？因此，客戶可以決定他們想要做什麼，因為他們了解他們想要做的事情的經濟效益。同時，你會感到一陣停頓。

And I think that shines through in the comments The Economist said to us and Jeff was alluding to is that customers are doing what they need to do, but they aren't necessarily doing more than they need to do because they aren't building for the future because they're not sure what their cost structure is going to be and if they want to do that thing. But price fatigue is we all get tired of talking about that because we'd rather talk about growth.

我認為《經濟學人》對我們說的評論和傑夫暗示的是，客戶正在做他們需要做的事情，但他們不一定做超出他們需要做的事情，因為他們沒有為未來做準備，因為他們不確定他們的成本結構將會是什麼樣的，以及他們是否想做那件事。但價格疲勞是我們都厭倦談論它，因為我們寧願談論成長。

Yeah, okay thanks, Dan. That's really helpful. And then just a quick one maybe for Sheryl. Just maybe can you just put some boundaries around 4Q gross margins?

是的，好的，謝謝，丹。這真的很有幫助。然後也許對謝麗爾來說只是一個快速的問題。您能否為第四季的毛利率設定一些界線？

I mean, Dan, you mentioned the potential of a little squeeze in the fourth quarter. I'm just wondering if there's any sort of more refined comments around that.

我的意思是，丹，你提到了第四季可能會出現一些小緊縮。我只是想知道是否有任何更精緻的評論。

Yeah. So in the fourth quarter, we are expecting that we'll see a drop in our gross margin, which is consistent with quarter four performance historically. But we are still targeting that we will be flat on our gross profit percentage for 2025 when compared to 2024, and that's really driven by the fastener expansion project promoting our gross margins. If somebody would have asked me in January with all the going on. What's a win in 2026.

是的。因此，我們預計第四季的毛利率將下降，這與歷史上第四季的表現一致。但我們的目標仍然是，2025 年的毛利率與 2024 年持平，這主要是因為緊固件擴建項目提高了我們的毛利率。如果有人在一月份問我發生的所有事情。2026 年的勝利意味著什麼。

I would have said getting our growth to double digit as it moves through the year. And if we can maintain a gross margin, a flat gross margin in this environment I think that's a huge win. And part of that was I didn't appreciate how chaotic the year would be on tariffs. I don't know if any of us really did. And secondly, I knew mathematically, how much the fastener expansion could help us.

我想說的是，隨著時間推移，我們的成長率將達到兩位數。如果我們能夠在這種環境下保持毛利率，保持穩定的毛利率，我認為這就是一個巨大的勝利。部分原因是我沒有意識到今年的關稅會變得如此混亂。我不知道我們當中是否有人真的這麼做過。其次，我從數學上知道緊固件擴充能為我們帶來多大的幫助。

But knowing mathematically how much it's going to help and realizing that in actual activity aren't always the same two things.

但是從數學上知道它能有多大幫助和在實際活動中意識到它有多大幫助並不總是同一件事。

Stephen Volkmann, Jefferies.

傑富瑞的史蒂芬·福爾克曼。

Great, good morning everybody. Dan, maybe can we go to your slide 10, and I'm curious how you use this data this percentage something that you're trying to manage to, to either grow it faster or not, I guess, to the overall business? And I'm curious if there's any -- I'm assuming the margins are higher in this area, but any commentary there would be great.

太好了，大家早安。丹，也許我們可以看一下你的第 10 張幻燈片，我很好奇你如何使用這些數據、這個百分比來嘗試管理某些事情，我想，是讓它更快地增長，還是不讓它對整體業務產生影響？我很好奇是否有任何——我假設這個領域的利潤率更高，但任何評論都會很棒。

Actually, the margins in direct materials are lower, but your cost structure is lower because it's planned activity. Here's how I use it. And I'm going to think out loud -- and Stephen, thank you for that question, by the way. But I'm going to think out loud.

實際上，直接材料的利潤率較低，但由於這是計劃活動，因此成本結構較低。以下是我的使用方法。我要大聲說出自己的想法——順便說一句，史蒂芬，謝謝你提出這個問題。但我要大聲思考。

So if you're writing these down, use a pencil instead of a pen because as the information becomes more available to you and frankly, to us, some of these things might be conceptually dead on, but they may be off by a little bit.

因此，如果您要寫下這些內容，請使用鉛筆而不是鋼筆，因為隨著資訊變得越來越容易獲得，坦白說，對我們來說，其中一些內容在概念上可能完全正確，但可能會有一點偏差。

So when I think of the PMI going sub-50 in November of 2022 and our business falling off as we got into the second quarter of 2023, there's obviously a cause and effect there. And the PMI and the industrial production subset of information that we've historically talked about internally.

因此，當我想到 PMI 在 2022 年 11 月跌至 50 以下，而我們的業務在進入 2023 年第二季度時出現下滑時，這顯然是有因果關係的。我們內部曾經討論過 PMI 和工業生產子集資訊。

When I look at that, the even we didn't really understand how much of this was production shutting down versus what is not executing or we need to get our head out of somewhere and get executing? And what this gives us insight, if we appreciate that 40% of our business -- or 38.8%, excuse me, but almost 40% of our business is direct material production related. The story that subset of information tells, I suspect we'll have a strong correlation to industrial production and to the PMI in general.

當我看到這一點時，我們甚至真的不明白其中有多少是生產停止了，有多少是沒有執行，或者我們需要從某個地方抽身並開始執行？這給我們帶來了啟示，如果我們認識到我們 40% 的業務——或者 38.8%，對不起，但幾乎 40% 的業務與直接材料生產有關。我認為，該資訊子集所講述的故事與工業生產和整體 PMI 有很強的相關性。

I also believe that close to -- we talk about [45.3%] of our sales go through FMI. I suspect on that piece of our business, probably 50% of that business goes through FMI. We don't know the answer to that right now, but that's what I suspect it will be when the dust settles.

我還相信，我們談論的接近 [45.3%] 的銷售額是透過 FMI 實現的。我估計我們這部分的業務大概有 50% 是透過 FMI 進行。我們現在還不知道答案，但我想當塵埃落定時答案就會揭曉。

Then the other 60% are indirect, it's truly MRO spend. That's really a good comparison benchmark to some of our peers that are more MRO centered businesses. It's a good comparison to the things we're doing to broaden our breadth of customer base because that's less impacted by the PMI less -- it's impacted but less so as far as industrial production as well because 8% of that business is going into supplying e-commerce distribution. 8% of that business is going into the government and sector where we're supplying their needs and it really has nothing to do with PMI. And we believe about -- of that 60% that's indirect, we believe about 40% of that is going through FMI.

其餘 60% 是間接的，是真正的 MRO 支出。對於我們一些以 MRO 為中心的同行來說，這確實是一個很好的比較基準。這與我們為擴大客戶群所做的事情很相似，因為這些事情受 PMI 的影響較小——雖然也受到影響，但對工業生產的影響較小，因為其中 8% 的業務用於供應電子商務分銷。 8% 的業務用於政府和部門，我們為他們提供需求，這實際上與 PMI 無關。我們認為，在這 60% 的間接收入中，大約有 40% 是透過 FMI 實現的。

So if you melt those two together, do your math, it's about 45% is the mix. Now time will tell if Dan is on that, and if the number is coming a little bit differently, we'll learn that in the weeks and months to come. And as we learn that in November with our monthly release, we'll put out some insight on it.

因此，如果將這兩者融合在一起，計算一下，混合物的比例約為 45%。現在時間會告訴我們丹是否達到了這個目標，如果數字略有不同，我們將在未來幾週和幾個月內得知。當我們在 11 月的月度發布會上了解到這一點時，我們會對此提出一些見解。

If we learn some new things in December, we'll put it -- or in November, we'll put it out with our December release and then talk about it a bit more in January and a bit more in our annual report because our goal is to provide you with better information for understanding our business where we're discovering our success, where we're struggling and are the factors of struggle internal, i.e., execution or external, and we're going to focus on growing our business long term always. But we think it provides better insight than purely, hey, here's fasteners and here's everything else.

如果我們在 12 月了解到一些新情況，我們會在 11 月將其發佈在 12 月的版本中，然後在 1 月和年度報告中進一步討論，因為我們的目標是為您提供更好的信息，以便您了解我們的業務，了解我們在哪裡發現了成功，我們在哪裡遇到了困難，以及內部困難的因素，即執行或外部，我們將始終執行或專注於我們的業務。但我們認為它比單純的「嘿，這裡是緊固件，這裡是其他一切」提供了更好的洞察力。

Great. Okay. That's helpful. And maybe from long term to super short term, anything in October to call out relative to how we should think about top line for the fourth quarter?

偉大的。好的。這很有幫助。也許從長期到超短期來看，十月份有什麼跡象顯示我們應該如何看待第四季的營收？

Whenever I use October on the 13th of the month, I'm always wrong. So I'll defer that to our November release in early November.

每當我在該月的 13 號使用 10 月時，我總是錯的。因此，我將把它推遲到 11 月初的發布。

Chris Snyder, Morgan Stanley.

摩根士丹利的克里斯·斯奈德。

I wanted to follow up on the conversation about price. Is the softer -- is there any impact here from that the producers are maybe just pushing less on you guys than you thought previously? And then -- or when we kind of see the Q4 step down, is it just that the company is comfortable being underwater for maybe a short period of time on price cost? And does that tell us that it's getting more competitive in the market? Thank you.

我想繼續討論有關價格的話題。是不是比較溫和——這是否會產生影響，因為製片人對你們的壓力可能比你之前想像的要小？然後——或者當我們看到第四季業績下滑時，是否只是因為公司願意在價格成本方面短暫處於困境？這是否說明市場競爭越來越激烈了？謝謝。

We're never comfortable being underwater on price/cost. Sometimes that happens. We're never uncomfortable if we're growing double digits, we don't like our incremental margin to be below 25, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over this quarter where we're closer to where we're at essentially 24.

我們永遠不會願意承受價格/成本的虧損。有時這種情況會發生。如果我們的成長速度達到兩位數，我們永遠不會感到不舒服，我們不希望增量利潤率低於 25，但本季度我們基本上接近 24 的水平，我不會為此而失眠。

I don't think the -- here's what I'd like to think, but this is me just giving an opinion and that and $3 to buy you a cup of coffee, a quick trip in Winona. But I believe our duty to our customers is the push back on supply base.

我不認為——這是我想要的想法，但這只是我給的意見，還有 3 美元可以給你買一杯咖啡，在威諾納快速旅行一次。但我相信我們對客戶的責任是推動供應基地的恢復。

Now in the case of things like tariffs, that's a mechanical thing. Now we can push back on our supply base and get price concessions or cost concessions potentially or we can move business to other geographies and avoid some of the tariffs but there's trade-offs.

現在就關稅等問題而言，這是一個機械問題。現在，我們可以反擊我們的供應基地，並可能獲得價格優惠或成本優惠，或者我們可以將業務轉移到其他地區並避免部分關稅，但這需要權衡。

You might be paying more to save tariff, and that more might be in the cost of the product as a -- we've diverted product going directly into Canada. So it doesn't come through the US and get the toll -- come through the US.

您可能需要支付更多費用來節省關稅，而這更多費用可能體現在產品成本中——我們已將產品直接轉入加拿大。因此，它不會經過美國並收取通行費——而是經過美國。

But it's more expensive for us to break shipments down and divert it to the West Coast of Canada and bringing it in that way. But that might be 8% more expensive, but if tariffs are x -- or multiples of that you choose to do that because it makes the most sense.

但對我們來說，將貨物拆開並轉運至加拿大西海岸，再以這種方式運輸，成本會更高。但這可能會貴 8%，但如果關稅是 x 或該數倍，您選擇這樣做，因為這是最合理的。

I would like to think that producers also realize that if you use tariffs as a means to, we're very, very surgical with our tariffs. Some companies aren't so surgical. They're just like, hey, we're just going to raise prices x to everybody.

我想生產商也意識到，如果使用關稅作為手段，我們的關稅就會非常非常精準。有些公司並沒有這麼精準。他們就像是說，嘿，我們要向所有人提高價格。

And when somebody does that, a supplier of ours does that, we'll say, you know what, you can set your pricing where you want to set it, the marketplace is going to decide where it wants to source its product. And if you're not being surgical, we're going to punch you in the face, and we want to take that product sourcing somewhere else.

當有人這樣做時，我們的供應商會這樣做，我們會說，你知道嗎，你可以隨意設定價格，市場將決定它想要從哪裡購買產品。如果你不採取手術手段，我們就會打你的臉，並且我們會把該產品的採購轉移到其他地方。

And I'd like to think some of those activities, and I'm not being literal with that comment. I'd like to think some of those activities causes pause of our supplier base to the old adage, pigs get -- fat hogs get slaughtered, don't be a hog. Figure out what you need, surgically buy product based on cost components, but don't do a broad brush on this. And perhaps we're seeing some of that but we will never be comfortable with price/cost being anything but neutral.

我想思考一下其中的一些活動，但我並不是從字面上評論。我想，其中一些活動會導致我們的供應商群體暫停思考那句老話，豬會被宰殺，肥豬會被宰殺，不要成為豬。弄清楚您需要什麼，根據成本成分精確地購買產品，但不要對此進行粗略的考慮。或許我們已經看到了一些這樣的情況，但是我們永遠不會對價格/成本不中性感到滿意。

Thank you, Dan. I Really appreciate that thoughtful answer. Maybe just following up. You mentioned earlier about making investments in inventory and not providing a great return. Do you think customers did anything similar in the first half of the year? There's very well-flagged telegraphed price increases coming.

謝謝你，丹。我真的很感謝這個深思熟慮的回答。也許只是跟進。您之前提到過對庫存進行投資並沒有帶來豐厚的回報。您認為客戶在上半年做過類似的事情嗎？有非常明確的跡象表明價格即將上漲。

Do you think there was any pulling forward of inventory at the customer level? Just to get ahead of that.

您認為客戶層級的庫存是否有提前？只是為了領先於此。

I can't speak to supply chains that don't come through Fastenal because I'm sure there's customers that bought some components because they knew what their needs are and they bought some, assuming they can get them in and they can get produced and get them in before the toll started charging. But I don't believe they did any of that activity through us because we're a real-time supply chain partner for them. That's the value we bring.

我無法談論那些不通過 Fastenal 的供應鏈，因為我確信有些客戶購買了一些組件，因為他們知道自己的需求，並且他們購買了一些，假設他們可以在收費之前將它們運進來，並且可以生產並將它們運進來。但我不相信他們透過我們進行任何活動，因為我們是他們的即時供應鏈合作夥伴。這就是我們帶來的價值。

And what we do broadcast to our customers is things we're doing, so we can tell them, hey, here's how many weeks of supply we have of your part. And here's where the cost increase is going to kick in and the price increase to you. So I don't think our customers did in the products we sell. I can't speak to products outside of that.

我們向客戶廣播的是我們正在做的事情，所以我們可以告訴他們，嘿，這是我們可以供應您那部分產品的周數。這就是成本增加和價格上漲的原因。所以我不認為我們的客戶對我們銷售的產品有這種感覺。我無法談論除此之外的產品。

And -- but with that, I see we are two minutes to the hour, so that will be our last question. Thanks to the blue team for everything you did. I would share with the group -- sorry, if I've been a little bit unavailable in the last couple of weeks.

而且——但是，我看到我們只差兩分鐘就整點了，所以這是我們的最後一個問題。感謝藍隊所做的一切。我會與小組分享——抱歉，如果過去幾週我有點忙不過來。

My 95-year-old mother passed away a couple of weeks ago, and she lived a wonderful life. Time takes its toll on all human beings, and I'm really glad that my four children, particularly our daughter Anna, who was 20 years old had a grandmother lived long enough that she was part of her life, and she knew her as a human being.

我 95 歲的母親幾週前去世了，她過著美好的生活。時間對所有人都有影響，我很高興我的四個孩子，特別是我們 20 歲的女兒安娜，他們的祖母活得足夠久，成為他們生活的一部分，並且了解她作為一個人。

Thanks, everybody. Have a good day.

謝謝大家。祝你有美好的一天。

Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference and webcast. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.

謝謝。今天的電話會議和網路直播到此結束。此時您可以斷開線路，享受美好的一天。我們感謝您今天的參與。