Earnings season has now kicked off, and word on the Street is that it’s going to be very good. Overall S&P 500 profits are expected to soar by 11.2% in Q417 according to UBS strategist Keith Parker. He told CNBC that this would be the second-strongest earnings growth period since 2011. The economy has momentum and all sectors are expected to post increases.
With this bullish outlook in mind, we used TipRanks’ Earnings Calendar to see which hot stocks are due to report their earnings in the next couple of weeks. Crucially, the Earnings Calendar also displays the analyst consensus and average price target of each stock, so you can immediately assess the Street outlook going into the print.
Here we searched for only stocks that have a ‘Strong Buy’ or ‘Moderate Buy’ analyst consensus rating- as well as scanning for stocks with notable upside potential from the current share price.
Now let’s delve deeper into these three top stocks:
Facebook (FB)
Social media giant FB will report its Q4 results on January 31. For Q4:17, consensus currently stands at $12.51B Revenue, $8.48B Adjusted EBITDA and $1.94 in GAAP EPS. “We view current Street December quarter estimates as reasonable, with upwards variance modestly more likely than downwards variance,” says top RBC Capital analyst Mark Mahaney. “Facebook has continued to grow users at an impressively robust pace off a very large base. In Q4:17, we are estimating Y/Y MAU growth of 14% to 2.12B.”
RBC Capital’s recent survey of nearly 5,000 internet users backs up his bullish take on the stock. Core Facebook had the best overall penetration rate and current usage among the Social Media networks. But he “continues to wonder whether core Facebook (not Instagram) has reached “peak” penetration in the U.S” as the survey found a “slightly (more) negative bias towards expected time spent on the platform.”
