Earnings season has commenced again. And investors tracking specific stocks will be keenly monitoring whether select stocks outperform or underperform consensus estimates for Q1 2017. In general, the mood is optimistic: “Revenue and earnings are expected to trend upwards,” wrote Terry Sandven, US Bank Wealth Management chief equity strategist. “We continue to look for equities to grind higher as earnings trend upwards.”
For investors looking for fresh investment inspiration, TipRanks’ earning calendar is the perfect tool. Unique stock analysis insights are incorporated into the calendar via the analyst consensus rating and the average analyst price target so you can immediately see the upside potential of each stock. Investors can also filter the stocks displayed by market cap, sector and analyst consensus rating (be it strong buy, hold or strong sell for example) to find the best stocks to follow. Add the stocks to your Smart Portfolio to receive ongoing updates on earnings and dividends.
The result: a customized earnings calendar based on stocks that match your specific investing criteria. Even better, TipRanks users have the option to refine the analyst consensus and price target to recommendations to only the best-performing Wall Street analysts that consistently outsmart the market.
So, with the best-performing analyst option, we used the following filters- $1 billion to $20 billion market cap, all sectors and strong buy sentiment, in order to find 5 top stocks to track this earnings season.
1 Visa (V)– this global payments company is due to release its earnings on April 20. It has a strong buy rating with only buy recommendations from best-performing analysts. Five-star Barclays’ analyst Darin Peller says he “strongly recommends” the “historically undervalued” stock adding that he finds management guidance conservative: “we see potential for guidance to be raised again with F2Q results and we model for EPS of $0.81 (vs. consensus of $0.79) and net revenue of $4.32bn (vs. consensus of $4.31bn)”. Peller reiterated his buy rating on April 13 with a $103 price target (15% upside from the current price).
2 Crown Castle (CCI)- wireless infrastructure company Crown Castle will release results on April 24. Consensus EPS is forecast at $1.16, slightly down from last year’s EPS of $1.18. Top analysts have only published buy ratings on the stock in the last 3 months. In particular, Guggenheim’s Jonathan Schildkraut upgraded CCI to Buy from Neutral and raised his price target to $101 from $91 on April 11 due to improving tower sentiment. The stock has upside potential of 8.4% from its current share price of $96.30.
3 Paypal (PYPL)- the online payments company is reporting results on April 26, with consensus EPS forecast at $0.33. “We believe legacy PayPal remains a sticky and relevant platform and concerns over losing share to credit cards may be overblown” says Credit Suisse analyst Paul Condra who has a $47 price target on the stock (9% upside).
4 Celgene (CELG)- this biotech company, which has seen its EPS grow considerably over the last year, will reports earnings on April 27. The consensus EPS forecast is $1.47 vs $1.18 last year and with a strong buy consensus, CELG has upside potential of 15% according to top analysts. Celgene expects to announce results from 19 late-stage clinical studies over the next couple of years while its key drug Revlimid already holds 48% of the multiple myeloma (MM) market.
5 Inphi Corp (IPHI)- this stellar semiconductor stock has consensus EPS of $0.24 vs $0.1 last year and is also due to release results on April 27. On a five-year basis, the stock has demonstrated incredible growth from about 2014 when shares were just $12, and with a unanimous buy rating, the stock still has impressive upside potential of close to 30%. Even the lowest analyst price target represents a 22% upside from the current share price of $45.
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