Q3 Earnings On Full Throttle

More Q3 earnings results are out ahead of Friday’s opening bell, capping off the first of several busy weeks of quarterly reportage. For a succinct yet comprehensive account of where earnings season is to this point, please see Zacks Director of Research Sheraz Mian latest piece on Q3 here: Is the Earnings Picture Good or Mixed?

Zacks Rank #2 (and Value-Growth-Momentum score of A)-rated Verizon (NYSE:VZ) posted a Q3 earnings beat on both top and bottom lines in in today’s pre-market, with earnings of $1.25 per share surpassing estimates by a penny and up from the $1.22 per share reported a year ago. Revenues of $32.89 billion rose 0.55% from expectations and the $32.61 billion a year ago.

The company has only gained 7.8% year to date, compared to the S&P 500 composite’s +20.1%. Shares are up 0.76% in pre-market activity, so this morning’s results do not appear to be heating up sentiment too much as this hour. For more on VZ’s earnings, click here.

U.S. oil refiner Phillips 66 (NYSE:PSX) put up mixed results in its Q3 earnings report this morning: $3.11 per share soundly beat the $2.60 Zacks consensus and up a penny from the year-ago quarter. However, sales in the quarter tallied $27.77 billion, down 1.89% from expectations and beneath the year-ago’s $30.59 billion. Shares are up 1.25% in early trading, following growth of 28.4% year to date as of Thursday afternoon’s close. For more on PSX’s earnings, click here.

Illinois Tool Works (NYSE:ITW) also beat on its Q3 bottom line while missing on the top. Earnings of $2.04 per share outperformed estimates by a solid dime (and better than the $1.90 reported for Q3 2018), but revenues of $3.48 billion came up 1.26% short of the Zacks consensus (and also down from $3.61 billion reported a year ago). Shares are down almost 2% in pre-market trading, after steaming ahead 26.4% year to date. For more on ITW’s earnings, click here.

Similarly, professional insurance services giant Aon (NYSE:AON) surpassed estimates on earnings while underperforming on sales: $1.45 per share was 2 cents better than expected and 14 cents higher than in the year-ago quarter, while $2.38 billion in quarterly revenues missed by 3.69% — though up from the $2.35 billion reported in Q3 of the previous year. After rising 31.6% year to date, shares had sold off slightly on the earnings news. For more on AON’s earnings, click here.

For Q3 earnings season, we're still just getting revved up. Next week, we hear from Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) , Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) ), Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) ) and Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX)