Earnings Preview: Walgreens, CalAmp

With the New Year right around the corner, the last of the year’s quarterly earnings reports are scheduled to be released in the next two weeks. What should investors expect?

Walgreens:

Walgreens (NYSE:WAG) is set to announce its first quarter fiscal 2015 earnings report on Tuesday. The company is expected to post $0.74 earnings per share, up from the same quarter last year when they posted $0.72 earnings per share. In addition, Walgreens has seen a 17% increase in shares over the past 3 months.

Walgreens is currently in the process of acquiring the remaining shares of Alliance Boots, a European drugstore chain. Shareholders are slated to vote on its full acquisition of the company next week.

Once the merger is complete, Walgreens will no longer be traded on the New York Stock Exchange, but rather on the NASDAQ under its new ticker, “WBA”.

A spokesman for Walgreens stated the new ticker symbol will be introduced when the deal closes “by the end of the first quarter of calendar 2015.”

In addition, Walgreens CEO Greg Wasson announced that he will retire after the company’s merger with Alliance Boots is complete.

Wasson said in a statement, “When I became CEO six years ago, I had three goals – to transform the front end of Walgreens drugstores, to advance the role that community pharmacy plays in health care and to find the right partner to take Walgreens global. With the creation of Walgreens Boots Alliance, it is now time for new leadership to move that vision forward building on the global platform we have created.”

Monaco tycoon Stefano Pessina is slated to take over as Chief Executive Officer once Wasson steps down.

The best performing analyst consensus on TipRanks for Walgreens is Moderate Buy.

CalAmp Corp:

CalAmp Corp (NASDAQ:CAMP) is scheduled to announce its third quarter fiscal 2015 earnings report on Tuesday after market close. The company is expected to post $0.22 earnings per share, up from the same quarter last year when they posted $0.21 earnings per share.

CalAmp is best known for producing wireless communications software and hardware devices in the Internet of Things and Machine 2 Machine Space.

The company is forecast to see significant growth this quarter and next quarter from their Caterpillar OEM business beginning full production with deliveries higher than expected.
In addition, CalAmp’s usage based insurance is beginning to normalize and is expected to bring in about $16 million in annual revenue. Investors should also look for the company’s new display terminal and app store as they are quickly gaining momentum and adding to their cloud revenue.

On average, the best performing analyst consensus on TipRanks for CalAmp is Strong Buy.

Will these factors ultimately benefit Walgreens and CalAmp’s earnings, or will they miss their estimates?