Premium appliance company iRobot Corporation (NASDAQ:IRBT) is scheduled to report first-quarter 2016 results on Apr 26, after the market closes. For the trailing four quarters, the company has generated a positive average earnings surprise of 113.64%.
Let’s see how things are shaping up prior to this announcement.
Factors to Affect Q1 Results
iRobot’s commercial growth is being supported by its robust Home Robotics business. The company’s latest wet floor business, improved distribution of Roomba 980 robots and increasing market share in China are expected to boost revenues in the to-be-reported quarter.
iRobot expects the successful divestiture of its Defense & Security business to improve top-line growth in the range of $125–$135 million for the to-be-reported quarter. This translates to a growth rate of 6–14% year over year.
However, the strengthening U.S. dollar is likely to weigh on the company’s international revenues and margins in the upcoming quarter. The company might even loose its market share in the quarter under review due to extensive industry rivalry. Based on these pessimistic views, iRobot predicts to accrue loss of 3–4 cents in the to-be-reported quarter.
Earnings Whispers
Our proven model does not conclusively state that iRobot is likely to beat earnings in the fourth quarter. That is because a stock needs to have both a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), #2 (Buy) or #3 (Hold) for an earnings beat. That is not the case here as we will see below.
Zacks ESP: iRobot has a 0.00% Earnings ESP for the quarter, as both the Most Accurate estimate and the Zacks Consensus Estimate are pegged at 2 cents.
Zacks Rank: iRobot’s Zacks Rank #3 increases the predictive power of ESP. However, we need to have a positive ESP to be confident about an earnings surprise.
We caution against Sell-rated stocks with (Zacks Rank #4 or #5) going into the earnings announcement, especially when the company is seeing negative estimate revision.
Stocks to Consider
Here are some companies you may want to consider as our model shows that these have the right combination of elements to post an earnings beat this quarter:
Boyd Gaming Corp. (NYSE:BYD) with an Earnings ESP of +12.00% and a Zacks Rank #1.
Six Flags Entertainment Corp. (NYSE:SIX) with an Earnings ESP of +7.81% and a Zacks Rank #2.
Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (NYSE:RCL) with an Earnings ESP of +6.45% and a Zacks Rank #2.
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