PG&E (PCG) To Report Q1 Earnings: What's In The Cards?

PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG) is set to report first-quarter 2018 results on May 3, before the opening bell.

The company reported a negative earnings surprise of 8.70% in the last reported quarter. However, the company surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three of the trailing four quarters, with an average earnings beat of 11.76%.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. Price and EPS Surprise

Let’s see how things are shaping up at the company prior to this announcement.

Factors at Play

PG&E incurred costs of $219 million in 2017 for service restoration and repairs to its facilities due to widespread wildfires that ravaged major parts of Northern California in October. These costs are likely to weigh on the company’s first-quarter 2018 results, if the company’s requests for cost recovery are not approved.

In line with this, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for PG&E’s first-quarter earnings of $1.03 per share reflects a year-over-year decline of 2.8%. Moreover, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenues is pegged at $4.23 billion, reflecting a 0.8% year-over-year decrease.

The company anticipates reducing revenue requirement by $500 million in 2018 stemming from the lower corporate tax rate. This is expected to effectively impact its results from this year. To that end, we may expect its first-quarter results to reflect a partial impact of the reduced revenue requirement.

Warmer-than-normal winter in PG&E’s service territory is expected to reduce electricity demand which in turn is likely to hurt the company’s quarterly revenues.

Earnings Whispers

Our proven model does not show that PG&E is likely to beat estimates this quarter. That is because a stock needs to have a positive Earnings ESP and a favorable Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) for this to happen. But this is not the case here as you will see below. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they’re reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

Zacks ESP: PG&E has an Earnings ESP of -1.86%, representing the percentage difference between the Most Accurate estimate of $1.01 per share and the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.03 per share.

Zacks Rank: PG&E has a Zacks Rank #3 which increases the predictive power of ESP. However, the company’s negative ESP makes surprise prediction difficult.

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

Stocks that Warrant a Look

Here are a few stocks in the Utility space that you may want to consider as our model shows that they have the right combination of elements to deliver an earnings beat in their upcoming release.

PPL Corporation (NYSE:PPL) has an Earnings ESP of +0.63% and a Zacks Rank #3. It is expected to report first-quarter 2018 earnings on May 3.

Duke Energy Corporation (NYSE:DUK) has an Earnings ESP of +1.66% and a Zacks Rank #3. The company is anticipated to report first-quarter 2018 earnings on May 10.

IDACORP, Inc (NYSE:IDA) has an Earnings ESP of +3.55% and a Zacks Rank #2. It is expected to report first-quarter 2018 earnings on May 3. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

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