Stocks mentioned in this article: AA, CSX, YUM, C, WFC, BAC
After several weeks of the stock market being dominated by macroeconomic news — much of it not even here in the States — U.S. companies will finally jump back into the spotlight as the second-quarter earnings season gets under way.
But even if you don’t own any of these five companies, you still might want to pay attention to their quarterly reports. That’s because this week is loaded with bellwethers, from construction-focused commodities to American transportation to big U.S. financials. Thus, we’ll get a few insights into the state of the nation, and to a lesser extent, the globe.
Here’s a look at five earnings reports to keep your eye on this week:
Alcoa (ticker: AA). While aluminum producer Alcoa is no longer part of the Dow Jones industrial average, to many, it still represents the unofficial start of earnings season. In this case, it’ll get the second quarter season started after the bell today.
Ironically enough, the focus won’t be on earnings.
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Instead, investors will be looking for information pertaining to the company’s upcoming split — a plan originally announced last September. As of now, we know that Alcoa plans to split into two companies: Alcoa Upstream, which will be renamed Alcoa Corp. and use the “AA” ticker, and Alcoa, which will be known as Arconic and use the ticker “ARNC.” Alcoa Upstream will represent the aluminum and bauxite mining businesses, among others, while Arconic will include its global rolled products, engineered products and solutions, and transportation and construction solutions businesses.
Naturally, investors will be looking into any additional insight they can gleam concerning the new pair of companies — if only to help them ignore what could be a rough second-quarter report. Aluminum, while up this year, has trailed most commodities in 2016 — not a comforting thought considering that the Street already expects earnings to decline from 19 cents per share a year ago to 10 cents, with revenues estimated to drop nearly 12 percent to $5.2 billion.
CSX Corp. (CSX). There’s nothing pretty about the estimates for CSX’s second quarter, either.
CSX CFO Frank Lonegro already cast a shadow over the second quarter, saying, “We are seeing year-to-date volume declines across most of our markets, reflecting continued low global commodity prices, the strong U.S. dollar, and the transition in the energy markets. For the second quarter, we now expect high-single-digit volume declines, which will negatively impact second-quarter earnings.”
Among the worries? A decline in coal demand has weighed on CSX’s coal carloads, which were off 31 percent in 2016’s first half. Also worrisome is oil’s slump over the past month, which will help make trucking a more attractive option than CSX’s intermodal options.
All of this fuels a low bar for Wednesday afternoon’s earnings report. Wall Street analysts are looking for profits of 45 cents per share, down 24 percent from last year, on revenues expected to decline 12 percent to $2.7 billion.
Yum Brands (YUM). After a lousy, topsy-turvy 2015, Yum Brands is having one heck of a rebound. However, although shares are up 17 percent for the year, most of that came in the first quarter — YUM has since plateaued and is looking for a reason to break out.
The question is: Will second-quarter earnings be the catalyst?
[Read: 10 Restaurant Stocks Poised for Growth in 2016.]
Well, Yum Brands has a short bar to hurdle, as profits are expected to improve 7 percent to 74 cents per share on revenues expected to slide less than a percent to $3.08 billion. And if it does put out a beat, you can expect that to be largely on the strength of its U.S. division, which Zacks sees as performing well across its Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC brands.
The wild card in Wednesday evening’s report will be emerging markets, both because of the potential for currency weights and a troubled China Pizza Hut segment, as well as any news about a spinoff of Yum’s Chinese operations, which is expected to come this year.
Citigroup (C). It’s fair to say that Citigroup’s biggest piece of news for summer has already come and gone. After all, the Big Four bank not only passed its second consecutive Federal Reserve stress test, but the Fed will allow Citigroup to more than triple its dividend and buy back up to $8.6 billion in stock.
Not too shabby.
Still, not all is well for the Big Four banks. Exposure to bad energy debt could continue to hamper banks, and America’s big financials still are facing weakness as the unexpected Brexit vote likely has put a Fed interest rate hike on ice for now.
And the current quarter wasn’t going to be pretty to begin with. When Citigroup reports Friday morning, analysts are expecting profits to decline from $1.51 per share in the year-ago period to $1.13, with revenues off nearly 8 percent to $17.67 billion. Barclays senior analyst Jason Goldberg specifically has lowered profit estimates for Citigroup by 17 cents to $1.09 per share, anticipating “more pressure on C’s fee businesses than originally anticipated.”
For what it’s worth, though, he maintained his “overweight” rating on Citigroup shares.
Wells Fargo & Co (WFC). Also reporting on Friday is Wells Fargo, and as has been the case for most of the year, WFC looks like it should be among the most resilient of America’s big banks.
Earnings estimates are attractive compared to the rest of the Big Four, with profits expected to decline just 2 percent to $1.01 per share, and revenues actually expected to improve by more than 4 percent.
That’s in large part because Wells Fargo is the most U.S.-centric of the four major banks, so it’s less hampered by a strong U.S. dollar, and the company doesn’t have nearly the trading and investment banking presence that Bank of America Corp. (BAC) and others do, so it won’t eat major post-Brexit losses there, either.
On the home front, Wells will try to cut costs by closing 60 to 70 branches this year, as well as launch a mobile wallet product to bring more consumer operations online.
[See: 11 Great Investing Tips for Women.]
A beat or encouraging forecasts amid an already strong set of estimates could make WFC the standout performer among the Big Four this quarter.
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5 Earnings Reports Every Investor Should Watch This Week originally appeared on usnews.com
