3 Reasons Why Cigna Corporation (CI) Is Poised To Beat Earnings
Cigna Corporation CI is an investor-owned employee benefits organization with subsidiaries who are major providers of health care products and services, group life, accident insurance, retirement products, and investment management. More importantly, the company will release its quarterly earnings report before the market opens on August 4.
Cigna currently sports a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) and has defeated its earnings projections in twelve of its past thirteen operational quarters, including an impressive beat last quarter of 13.52%. Furthermore, Cigna operates in the Insurance – Multi line industry, which currently sits in the top 44% of the Zacks Industry Rank.
Cigna Corporation features a strong Zacks Rank, an impressive quarterly earnings performance, as well as an Earnings ESP of 1.61%. All of these factors should allow investors to possess optimism as we approach its quarterly earnings release.
Here are 3 additional reasons to be bullish on Cigna Corporation as we near its report date:
1. Strong Style Scores
The company currently holds a “B” Value grade on our Style Scores System, which means that we view Cigna as undervalued in comparison with the market. For example, Cigna possesses a cash/price ratio of $31.00 and price/cash flow ratio of $8.44, both of which defeat the industry averages of $4.89 and $7.44, respectively. Furthermore, the company boasts an impressive cash flow per share of $10.57, in comparison with the industry average of $2.90.
Additionally, Cigna Corporation holds an “A” grade for Growth, which means that the company holds intriguing future growth prospects. For instance, Cigna Corporation holds a projected EPS growth of 20.61% and RoE of 15.15%, both of which compare favorably to the industry averages of 7.94% and 7.50%, respectively.
2. Increasing Membership
Cigna has continued growing its membership over the past couple of years. The company finished 2016 with 15.2 million global medical customers, with the addition of approximately 200,000 customers. Furthermore, Membership continued to increase throughout the first quarter of 2017 with an increase of 537,000 customers.
Membership is projected to continue rising moving forward, given its diversified product portfolio, a wide agent network, and superior service. For 2017, Cigna expects global medical customers to grow from 500,000 to 600,000 lives over year-end 2016, reflecting the strong growth experienced by the company across its various market segments.
3. Growing Customers Among Key Divisions
Cigna Corporation is projected to witness increases in customers throughout numerous divisions of the company. For example, customers within the pharmacy division are expected to increase to 8,909, which would constitute year-over-year growth of 7.31%. Also, customers in the dental division are projected to increase to 14,880, which would represent strong year-over-year growth of 6.28%.
These consensus estimates are from our exclusive non-financial metrics estimate file. These estimates are updated daily and are based on the independent research of expert stock analysts. Learn more here>>>
Cigna Corporation is expected to report sales of $9.98 billion, which would be an increase from last year’s figure of $9.89 billion. Also, the company is projected to report earnings of $2.48 per share, which would constitute impressive year-over-year growth of 25.25%.
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