Which Stocks Look Ready to Surge or Sink After Earnings Next Week?
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.
In its latest earnings preview, BullMarket.com looks at several popular stocks, including Salesforce.com (CRM), DSW (DSW), Home Depot (HD), Best Buy (BBY), Green Mountain (GMCR), Deere (DE), Splunk (SPLK), Target (TGT), Pandora (NYSE:P), and The Fresh Market (TFM).
Here is just a tiny sample of what BullMarket.com wrote about Best Buy: Best Buy has beaten analyst EPS estimates five of eight quarters over the past two years, missing the consensus three times. During that span, the stock has risen the next session three of eight quarters. Seasonally, the stock has fallen each of the past four years. ...
Last quarter, the company reported a profit of $226 million, or 77 cents per share, for the three months ended August 3rd. That compared with $12.4 million, or 4 cents per share, in the year-earlier period.
Excluding the impact of one-time items, Best Buy's said it earned 32 cents per share, trouncing the Street's expectation of 12 cents per share in profit.
Revenue dipped slightly to $9.30 billion from $9.34 billion last year.
Consolidated sales on a same-store basis declined by -0.6% during the quarter, but that was a significant improvement from the -3.3% drop reported a year ago. Same-store sales at domestic stores slipped by -0.4% and were down by -1.8% at international stores. Online sales, however, grew by 10.5%.
Breaking down the quarter's operating results, domestic revenue of $7.81 billion was slightly up from last year, driven by revenue from 57 net new Best Buy Mobile stand-alone stores that were opened in the second half of fiscal 2013, partially offset by a comparable-store sales decline of -0.4%. ...
Outside of earnings, after trading last year as if it were headed to the same fate as former competitor Circuit City, Best Buy has been one of the market's top performers this year.
While sales at the electronics retailer have been lackluster, what the company has done very well thus far this year is reduce costs. A year ago (November 2012), the company announced plans to reduce its costs in North America as part of its Renew Blue restructuring program.
It is looking to eliminate $400 million in SG&A costs and $325 million in cost of goods sold. On the latter metric, the company said customer returns, replacements, and damages having been costing it about -$400 million a year in losses, or about 10% of revenue, and management thinks through better supply chain management that it can greatly reduce these costs.
Thus far, Best Buy has done a good job reducing these costs, which has led to nice bottom-line beats the last three quarters. After the sale of Best Buy Europe, the balance sheet is also in good shape, with $1.9 billion in cash and equivalents against $1.7 billion in debt. In addition, inventory decreased -6.8% in Q2 to $5.4 billion, showing good inventory management.
At this point, Best Buy has stabilized the business, and it still has more costs to take out of it to reach its goal. The next step is to try to reinvigorate sales. ... 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.
Just a few of the correct calls BullMarket.com made for Q3 so far were:
