Public Service Enterprise (PEG) Q3 Earning: What's In Store?

Public Service Enterprise (NYSE:PEG) is scheduled to release third-quarter 2019 results on Oct 31, before the opening bell. In the last reported quarter, the company reported a negative earnings surprise of 6.45%.

Let’s discuss the factors that are likely to get reflected in the upcoming quarterly results.

Factors to Consider

During the third quarter, most of the Public Service Enterprise’s service territory areas experienced warmer-than-normal temperature. This is likely to have increased household expenditure on cooling, which in turn might have had a positive impact on the company’s third-quarter revenues.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for third-quarter revenues is pegged at $2.55 billion, which indicates a rise of 6.6% from the year-ago quarter’s reported figure.

The company is experiencing lower operating and maintenance costs for past two quarters. Along with that, effective cost control and lower corporate tax rate at PSEG power are expected to have bolstered its third-quarter bottom line.

However, the company is witnessing increasing long-term debt for a few quarters, which are pushing up its interest expenses. Moreover, the company is continuously making investments to improve infrastructure, which tends to raise capital expenses.

These trends are likely to have persisted in the third quarter, which might have offset the aforementioned tailwinds. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for third-quarter earnings is pegged at 95 cents per share, which suggests no change from the year-ago quarter’s reported figure.

Earnings Whispers

Our proven model doesn’t conclusively predict an earnings beat for Public Service Enterprise this time around. The combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) increases the chances of an earnings beat. But that’s not the case here.

Earnings ESP: The company’s Earnings ESP is 0.00%. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they’re reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

Zacks Rank: Public Service Enterprise carries a Zacks Rank #3. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.