The week has been flooded with earnings releases as most of the bigwigs have either reported or are lined up to release their quarterly numbers this week. By the end of this week, more than 88% of S&P 500 members will complete their quarterly reporting.
The releases so far have not been much of a disappointment, contrary to the anticipations at the onset of the earnings season, thanks to the lower estimates. As per the latest Earnings Trend Report, overall first-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are expected to be down 7.3% from the year-ago quarter, slightly better than the earlier estimated decline of 9.7%.
Notably, earnings growth is expected to be positive for 7 of the 16 Zacks sectors in the quarter ended Mar 2016. Medical is one of the few sectors that are expected to record earnings growth in the first quarter. As per our scorecard, 60.4% of the Medical sector companies have already released their results with earnings growth of 6.3% and revenue improvement of 11.8%.
Dental is an important component of the medical sector and is expected follow the same earnings growth trajectory in the quarter. Notably, most of the large market caps have already reported and so far, the results have been quite encouraging.
EPS and Sales Surprise from top 5 Large Caps in the sector:
| Tickers | Market Cap | EPS Beat% | Sales Beat% |
|---|---|---|---|
| ALGN | $6.02B | 28.21 | 0.83 |
| BCR | $15.76B | 7.83 | 3.29 |
| CAH | $26.18B | 7.52 | 0.98 |
| LH | $12.85B | 3.06 | 7.79 |
| HSIC | $14.05b | 1.44 | 2.06 |
We now take a sneak peek into two major dental providers lined up to report earnings late this week:
Becton, Dickinson and Company (NYSE:BDX) , popularly known as BD, is scheduled to report second-quarter fiscal 2016 results on May 5. BD’s innovative product pipeline, expansion into overseas markets and synergies from the CareFusion (NYSE:CFN) merger are the key growth catalysts.
We note that BD has posted a positive earnings surprise of 4.07% on an average over the last four quarters. (Read More: Becton, Dickinson: Stock Set to Top Earnings in Q2?)
DENTSPLY SIRONA Inc. (NASDAQ:XRAY) is set to report first-quarter 2016 results on May 6. The company’s results will be benefited by its expanding product portfolio and increasing penetration into the emerging markets.
Notably, the company’s results compared favorably with the Zacks Consensus Estimate in the last four quarters, with an average beat of 3.46%. (Read More: DENTSPLY: What's in Store This Earnings Season?)
Check later on our full write-up on earnings releases of these stocks!
BECTON DICKINSO (BDX): Free Stock Analysis Report
DENTSPLY SIRONA (XRAY): Free Stock Analysis Report
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Zacks Investment Research