By Carly Forster
Wall Street is heading towards the end of earnings season as four major companies are scheduled to release quarterly reports this week. What should investors look for in those reports?
Urban Outfitters (URBN, Financial):
Urban Outfitters will announce its first quarter 2016 earnings results on Monday, May 18 after market close. The retailer is expected to post earnings of $0.30 a share and $758.25 million in revenue, up from $0.26 earnings per share and $686.30 million in revenue the same quarter last year.
In the last quarter, Investors were happy to see the Urban Outfitters brand had a 4% growth in comparable sales, as the company had experienced a sales dip for the prior 3 quarters. The company saw an increase in sales at its sister brands as well; 6% at Anthropologie and 18% at Free People. Wall Street believes the company will report another increase in comparable sales in its first quarter results.
Investors and analysts will also be looking to see if Urban Outfitters revises its full-year guidance, or if the company announced any plans for expansion.
On average, the top analyst consensus for Urban Outfitters on TipRanks is Moderate Buy.
Wal-Mart Stores (WMT, Financial):
Wal-Mart will announce first quarter 2015 earnings on Tuesday, May 19 before the market opens. Wall Street expects the company to post earnings of $1.04 per share and $116.2 billion in revenue; down from $1.10 earnings per share, but up from $114.96 billion in revenue year-over-year.
In the last quarter, Wal-Mart unveiled new initiatives to improve wages and training for employees. Starting this April, the company began increasing the pay of 500,000 full-time and part-time U.S employees to $9.00 an hour. By February 2016, Wal-Mart plans to increase wages to $10.00 an hour. Most of Wall Street did not react too kindly to this news as it is not clear if there will be a positive impact from the increased wages, and if there is, how long it will take to materialize.
Wal-Mart also recently announced it is in the midst of testing an online service similar to Amazon Prime. With that said, investors will be looking to see how the company’s online sales performed in the first quarter as they only rose 22% in the same quarter last year, compared to 30% the year before.
On average, the top analyst consensus for Wal-Mart on TipRanks is Hold.
Hewlett-Packard Company (HPQ, Financial):
Hewlett-Packard is slated to announce its second quarter 2015 earnings on Thursday, May 21 after market close. The company is expected to post earnings of $0.86 a share and $25.68 billion in revenue, down from $0.88 earnings per share and $27.3 billion in revenue in the same quarter a year prior.
In October 2014, Hewlett-Packard announced plans to split into two separate publicly traded companies by the end of 2015. Hewlett Packard will divide into HP, which will sell computers and printing operations, and HP Enterprise, which will sell all software, storage, and cloud services. Investors and analysts alike will be looking to see how separation costs will affect HPQ’s finances.
Hewlett-Packard has seen continued weakness from their IT service which has been representing a challenge for the industry as a whole. However, HP seems to be flourishing in its hardware business which analysts expect will help its revenue in its second quarter earnings.
On average, the top analyst consensus for Hewlett-Packard on TipRanks is Moderate Buy.
Intuit Inc. (INTU, Financial):
Intuit is scheduled to announce its third quarter 2015 earnings results on Thursday, May 21 after market close. The computer software company is expected to post $2.57 earnings per share, down from $3.53 earnings per share the same quarter last year.
In the last quarter, Inuit posted a loss of ($0.19) a share, surprising analysts who had expected a loss of ($0.26) a share. With that said, Intuit has continuously beat analysts’ estimates, especially in the previous two quarters.
Inuit has been putting all of its efforts into its transition into the cloud, which is expected to be a key growth driver in the company’s near-term. By 2019, the company’s global cloud applications market is expected to reach $66.44 billion, compared to $30.43 billion in 2014.
On average, the top analyst consensus for Intuit on TipRanks is Hold.
