While tomorrow will offer a wealth of earnings reports, lets take a quick look at earnings previews for five bellwether companies; American Express Company (NYSE:AXP), eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY), Noble Energy, Inc. (NYSE:NBL), SLM and SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK).
American Express Company (NYSE:AXP)
American Express named Edward P. Gilligan President yesterday but the real focus will be on tomorrow’s earnings report that hopes to build on the momentum they built in 2012. Net revenues for 2012 were up 5% over 2011, and we expect the company to maintain the momentum it gathered last year with solid bottom and top line growth in the first quarter.
American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) typically presents EPS estimates that are quite close to the Street consensus. Current Street estimates are for $1.12, with a range of $1.03 to $1.21. Consensus estimates for revenues are $8.04 billion, with a range of $7.82 billion to $8.52 billion
American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) will report Q1 2013 earnings after the closing bell on Wednesday, April 17. A conference call will follow at approximately 5:00 p.m. ET. Due to consumers gravitating to online shopping more and more, its expected that American Express and its competitors will continue to reap the benefits of this trend.
EBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY)
Investors will be looking for growth at PayPal and at eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY)’s marketplaces unit, which includes its namesake shopping site. Paypal has been making recent inroads and analysts expect this to continue as more and more people use their tablets and phones for their shopping needs.
In January, eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) released its fourth quarter and annual earnings for 2012. It was an impressive year and management had positive guidance going forward. 2012 Annual Results (compared to 2011 annual results) included earnings per share rising 16.3% to $2.36 with net revenue increased 21% to $14.1 billion.
Following market close tomorrow, ebay will announce its 2013 Q1 results that the world will be watching as a sign of overall commerce growth. Analysts, on average, are expecting adjusted earnings of 62 cents per share on revenue of $3.77 billion, according to a poll by FactSet. EBay said in January that it expects adjusted earnings of 60 cents to 62 cents per share on revenue ranging from $3.65 billion to $3.75 billion.
For the same quarter last year ebay earned 44 cents per share, or 55 cents per share, excluding one-time items. Revenue came to $3.28 billion.
Noble Energy, Inc. (NYSE:NBL)
Noble Energy, Inc. (NYSE:NBL) is a contract driller of oil and natural gas wells. It provides customers in the oil and gas industry with offshore drilling services and engineering and consulting services.
Noble Energy, Inc. (NYSE:NBL) has been outperforming both their competition and analysts expectations for the last year. The company has seen double-digit year-over-year revenue growth for the past four quarters. Over that time span, revenue has increased by an average of 32.4%, with the largest growth in the second quarter of the last fiscal year when it rose 43.1% year-over-year.
Noble Energy, Inc. (NYSE:NBL) will be presenting their earnings before the market opens tomorrow. Analysts, unfortunately, have become more wary as expectations have fallen over the past month to earnings of 58 cents per share from earnings of 65 cents per share. The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.56 per share. Estimates range from $0.44 to $0.75.
On average, analysts predict $758.5 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 23.8% from the year-ago quarter.
SLM Corp (NASDAQ:SLM)
SLM Corp (NASDAQ:SLM) originates, services and collects student loans. It provides funding, delivery and servicing support for education loans in the United States. One of its largest competitors, American Express, will also be announcing its earnings tomorrow.
Shares of SLM Corp (NASDAQ:SLM) have climbed 12.6% over the last three months to close at $15.23 on April 12, 2012. The company is looking to keep that trend going when it releases its first quarter results.
The average estimate of analysts is for net income of 51 cents per share, a decline of 32% from the company’s actual earnings for the same quarter a year ago. During the past three months, the average estimate has moved up from 50 cents. Analysts are projecting a decline of 17.6% in revenue from the year-earlier quarter to $706 million.
Revenue has fallen in the past four quarters. Revenue declined 43.4% in the second quarter from the year earlier, dropped 14.2% in first quarter from the year-ago quarter and 12.7% in the fourth quarter of the last fiscal year.
SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK)
While being profitable for the last eight quarters, the company has seen net income slip over the past four quarters by an average of 58.8% year-over-year. The company was hit the hardest in the second quarter of the last fiscal year as it saw profit drop by 94.8%
However, since that quarter, SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) has enjoyed a remarkable turnaround in its stock price making analysts increasingly bullish while increasing their earnings and revenue estimates since the beginning of 2013.
Analyst consensus is looking for $0.78 on $1.3 billion in revenues for expected year-over-year growth of 24% and 7% respectively. However it is the 2nd and 3rd calendar quarters of 2013 where we really get the easy compares against the collapse of NAND flash prices last year, not to mention the weak bit growth.
