What happened Shares of ocean-going, oil-carrying transport operator Frontline (NYSE: FRO) tumbled in Wednesday trading, falling 9.5% through 1:15 p.m. EST after the company reported disappointing earnings in its third-quarter 2020 financial report late last night. Analysts had forecast that Frontline would earn $0.32 per share on sales of $184.4 million. In fact, earnings came in 10% shy of that mark at $0.29 per share, despite total operating revenue being $247.4 million. Image source: Getty Images. So what Was this really "bad" news though? After all, compared to last year's Q3, Frontline increased its revenue 32% while decreasing its operating expenses 2%. Operating income at the company nearly sextupled year over year to $71 million. Frontline may not have earned quite as much on the bottom line as analysts had forecast, but it did at least earn the $0.29 -- which was a whole lot better than last year's $0.06 per share Q3 loss. That's hardly bad work for an oil shipper operating in the middle of a pandemic that has crushed demand for oil worldwide. Frontline even managed to put away some cash in the quarter, generating positive free cash flow of $103 million (which was more than its reported net income, I might add), up more than 10 times from the less than $10 million in FCF generated a year ago. Now what If there's one thing about Frontline that worries me -- one thing keeping me away from investing in a stock that, at last report, was trading for less than three times trailing earnings and looks, at first glance, to be an incredible bargain -- it's the debt. Frontline's debt load is simply staggering -- $1.9 billion versus barely one-tenth that amount in cash -- and its debt load has grown nearly 55% since the end of last year. If I could make just one suggestion to Frontline at this point, therefore, it would be this: Take some of that free cash you generated in Q3 and use it to pay off some debt. 10 stocks we like better than FrontlineWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.* David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the ten best stocks for investors to buy right now... and Frontline wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys. See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of November 20, 2020 Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.Source