Stocks tend to be most volatile around earnings season, when a good or bad report can make or break it. However, a good or even great earnings report doesn't necessarily translate into a huge pop for a stock.
During earnings season, BullMarket.com publishes a comprehensive 20- to 30-page Earnings Preview report for the week ahead each Friday.
Over the past two years, BullMarket.com used the data it has collected to correctly predict investor reactions for nearly two-third of the stocks it's previewed.
In its latest earnings preview, BullMarket.com looks at several popular stocks, including Groupon (GRPN - News), Target (TGT - News), Deere (DE - News), Home Depot (HD - News), Wal-Mart (WMT - News), Intuit (INTU - News), Dollar Tree (DLTR - News), and Salesforce.com (CRM - News).
Here is just a tiny sample of what BullMarket.com wrote about Home Depot:
The Home Depot is a home improvement retailer that sells an assortment of building materials, home improvement and lawn and garden products. ...
Last quarter, the company wrapped up the previous fiscal year on a high note. Its Q4 sales grew by 5.9% to $16 billion as sales on a comparative-store basis increased by 5.7%, paced by 6.1% comparative-store sales growth in the U.S.
The company reported a profit of $774 million, or 50 cents per share, for the three-month period. That's up from $587 million, or 36 cents per share, a year earlier.
The EPS results topped the analyst consensus estimate by 8 cents and sales exceeded Wall Street's expectations by more than $500 million.
Total transactions rose 3.6% while the average amount a customer spent rose 2.4%. The number of customers who spent less than $50 rose 1.3% and the number of customers who spent more than $900 grew by 3%. Each of those categories represents about 20% of Home Depot's sales.
Geographically, the company said it enjoyed positive comps in all of its top-40 markets around the country.
The company guided for earnings in the current fiscal year that ends January 2013 of $2.79 per share. Its guidance includes the impact of anticipated stock buybacks. Sales are expected to grow by 4% to approximately $73.2 billion. The current fiscal year includes a 53rd sales week.
Analysts had been looking for earnings of $2.76 per share on sales of $72.47 billion. Wall Street analysts think the company's forecast is conservative, as the consensus estimate has moved to $2.86 per share of earnings on sales of $73.68 billion. ...
Home Depot has topped the EPS consensus seven of the past eight quarters, meeting estimates once. Over that period, the stock has risen the next session five of eight quarters. Seasonally, the stock has risen once in the past four years. ...
Outside of earnings, Home Depot has consistently outperformed rival Lowe's (LOW - News) over the past couple of years under the leadership of CEO Fred Blake. A warm winter and signs of an early spring bode well for a seasonally strong start to the current fiscal year.
Its execution coupled with signs of some small improvement in the home construction and remodeling sector has attracted the attention of investors, who have pushed the stock price up this year. At current levels, the stock trades at just under 16x the consensus EPS estimate ($3.27) for the fiscal year that ends January 2014. ...
The full BullMarket.com earnings analysis includes a look at historical earnings data and EPS trends for the companies above and more; examines past investor reactions to earnings in various contexts; gives options activity analysis; reviews previous-quarter earnings; and gives an opinion on both what earnings will look like and how investors will react based on the aforementioned data points.
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