Can Infinera (INFN) Spring A Surprise This Earnings Season?

Infinera Corp. (NASDAQ:INFN) , a leading optical transport network developer, is slated to report third-quarter 2017 financial numbers on Nov 8, after closing bell.

The company’s earnings surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in two of the previous four quarters, with an average positive surprise of 4.65%.

Let’s see how things are shaping up for this announcement.

Infinera Corporation Price and EPS Surprise

Factors at Play

Infinera, headquartered in California, is a provider of Digital Optical Networking systems to telecommunications carriers, cable operators and other service providers worldwide.

We are impressed with Infinera’s strategic business moves which include new launches and alliances. Different network service providers are merging with Infinera for the deployment of the Infinera Cloud Xpress both regionally and globally, to reach out to customers with higher scalability and reliability.

Meanwhile, the company announced that Telxius, the global telecommunications infrastructure company created by Telefonica SA (NYSE:TEF) , offers customers on-demand software-defined terabit capacity subsea service activation on Telxius’ SAM-1 subsea network in the United States, Brazil and Puerto Rico.

Infinera’s decision to power cloud scale networks should boost its cloud suite. We believe that this will aid the company improve the top line in the to-be-reported quarter and lend it a competitive edge.

However, stiff competition from peers like Lantronix, Inc. (NASDAQ:LTRX) in the cut-throat digital optical networking market raises concerns and might hamper the company’s quarterly performance.

Further, shares of Infinera declined 9.4% as against the industry’s gain of 8.0% in the past three months.

Earnings Whispers

Our proven model does not conclusively show that Infinera is likely to beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate this quarter. This 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 this to happen. Unfortunately, that is not the case here as elaborated below.

Zacks ESP: Infinera has an Earnings ESP of 0.00%. This is because both the Most Accurate estimate and the Zacks Consensus Estimate are pegged at a loss of 16 cents. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they’re reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

Zacks Rank: Infinera has a Zacks Rank #3 which increases the predictive power of ESP. However, the company’s 0.00% ESP makes surprise prediction difficult.

We caution against stocks with a Zacks Rank #4 or 5 (Sell rated) going into the earnings announcement, especially when the company is seeing negative estimate revisions.

Key Pick

Here is a company in the broader Computer and Technology sector— which houses Infinera — that has the right combination of elements to post an earnings beat this quarter.

Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is expected to release fourth-quarter 2017 results on Feb 7. The company has an Earnings ESP of +1.12% and carries a Zacks Rank #3. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

The company’s earnings surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in all of the previous four quarters, resulting in an average beat of 14.02%.

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