FedEx's numbers are the first real look at the impact the brutal winter had on the shipping industry. Temperatures across a vast area of the United States, from the Great Plains through the Midwest and into the northern Appalachians, ran 6 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit (3.3 to 5.5 degrees Celsius) below normal for 2-1/2 months straight.  Companies across the board have been talking about how the weather hurt their quarterly results. McDonald's partly blamed a fall in January sales at its established U.S. restaurants on the frigid cold and snow, while vitamin and nutritional supplements retailer GNC Holdings warned that its first-quarter results would miss expectations for that reason.  Ford Motor, railroad operator CSX and air carrier United Continental Holdings have also said the weather was affecting operations in the first quarter.  During the third quarter, FedEx entered into an accelerated share repurchase agreement to buy back an aggregate of $2 billion of common stock.  The third-quarter results benefited from Cyber Week, a heavy online shopping period that had fallen in the second quarter last year, as well as from one additional operating day, the company said.  However, problems stemming from the harsh winter overshadowed those benefits.  (Read more: Adobe forecast tops estimates as subscriptions rise)  Apart from bad weather, FedEx, like bigger rival United Parcel Service, was also hit by an unprecedented surge in online holiday shipping volumes.  Typically, a rise in online sales is good news for companies like these because it means more demand for their services. But this time, UPS said it had been overwhelmed by the volume of holiday packages. The arrival of Christmas presents around the globe was delayed, and angry customers took to social websites to complain.
FedEx reported lower-than-expected results for the holiday quarter and gave a fiscal-year profit forecast below Wall Street estimates.