Earnings Reports for the Week of Oct. 26-30 (AAPL, AMZN, CVX, FB, GOOGL, MSFT, XOM)

Below is a weekly earnings calendar of the most important upcoming quarterly reports schedule to be released by publicly traded companies. There are also earnings previews for select companies. Please check back often. This earnings calendar is updated weekly.

• Monday (10/26)

• Tuesday (10/27)

• Wednesday (10/28)

• Thursday (10/29)

• Friday (10/30)

(Editor’s Note: Earnings dates in tables are tentative. However, companies featured in “Earnings Spotlights” have officially announced their earnings dates.)

Earnings Calendar Highlights

MONDAY

Noteworthy Earnings Reports

TUESDAY

Earnings Spotlight: Microsoft

Microsoft (MSFT, $216.23) is one of the best mega-cap stocks of 2020, putting up 37% gains year-to-date. But it’ll be looking to kick-start what has been almost two months of flat activity with its quarterly earnings report, due out after the Oct. 27 close.

Analysts will be looking at several categories, including the company’s cloud, productivity and gaming divisions.

“We expect upside to Street EPS/revenue forecasts, as we believe Microsoft’s various properties (Azure/Office365/PC) should continue to benefit from accelerated digital transformation due to the pandemic and a rebounding worldwide economy driving better-than-expected transactional revenue,” write Stifel analysts Brad Reback and Adam Borg, who rate the stock at Buy with a $245 12-month price target. “Looking ahead for Microsoft, we expect a solid December guide, based on the aforementioned acceleration in demand, ongoing O365 gains (pricing and volume), Azure market share expansion and the upcoming Xbox release.”

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Credit Suisse expects “solid Fq1 results,” too, though they note a little risk in Azure figures.

“A focal point of Microsoft results will be the trajectory of Azure, especially after it decelerated a bit faster than expected last quarter (F4Q20),” write Credit Suisse analysts (Outperform, equivalent of Buy). “We believe buy-side expectations are in the mid-40%s y/y (FX neutral). In our view, street expectations are reasonable, though slightly higher than typical seasonality.”

The headline numbers to watch: Revenues are expected to come in at $35.72 billion (+8.1% year-over-year), and profits are modeled to rise 11.6% to $1.54 per share.

Other Noteworthy Reports

WEDNESDAY

Noteworthy Earnings Reports

THURSDAY

Earnings Spotlight: Alphabet, Amazon.com, Apple and Facebook

More than a third of the S&P 500’s components will report this week, but the most important time to watch is Thursday afternoon, when four companies representing more than 16% of the index’s weight report: Alphabet (GOOGL, $1,632.98), Amazon.com (AMZN, $3,204.40), Apple (AAPL, $115.04) and Facebook (FB, $284.79).

Let’s take a quick look at each:

Alphabet: Analyst expectations are for revenues of $42.77 billion (+5.6%) and profits of $11.18 per share (+10.5%).

CFRA analyst John Freeman (Strong Buy) has raised his price target on shares by $65, to $1,930 per share, based both on Snap’s (SNAP) strong results which included a rebound in online/digital ad spending, as well as “the realization among investors that even the most recent DoJ-led action – an anti-trust lawsuit as narrow in scope and as trifling as that against Microsoft in the ’90s – was filed for political effect two weeks before the election.”

Amazon.com: Analyst expectations are for revenues of $92.48 billion (+32.2%) and profits of $7.25 per share (+71.4%).

Citi analyst Jason Bazinet (Buy, $3,550 price target) believes Amazon should benefit from “several growth engines,” citing e-commerce and advertising. He does note, however, that Prime Day 2020 was “the best on record” – an interesting choice of wording that could suggest it wasn’t the company’s biggest shopping event ever.

Apple: Analyst expectations are for revenues of $64.16 billion (+0.2%) and profits of 71 cents per share (-6.6%).

More important than Apple’s quarterly expectations are any early signs of what the recently launched iPhone 12 is doing. “Investors are expecting 230M iPhones sold in FY21, 10% above our forecast,” write UBS analysts. “As we have previously noted, we estimate each 5 million incremental iPhones sold adds roughly $0.05 to our FY2021 EPS estimate of $3.84, or about 1.3%. If FY2021 units hit the buy-side bogey, our EPS estimate could be 5% too low.”

Facebook: Analyst expectations are for revenues of $19.73 billion (+11.7%) and profits of $1.89 per share (-10.8%).

“We raise our revenue growth expectations for 2H20 based on stronger checks, indicating better-than-expected ad budget growth across both core Facebook and Instagram,” write Credit Suisse analysts (Outperform). “We believe ad pricing continued to improve sequentially, due primarily to marketers returning to the auction.

“As we have noted previously, the most important updates for us is the number of business profiles and advertisers – as of 2Q20, these stood at 180mm and 9mm, respectively, implying a 5% conversion rate from free to paying vs the historical range of 5-8.5%. This suggests advertiser growth should accelerate as businesses rush to get online.”

Other Noteworthy Reports

FRIDAY

Earnings Spotlight: Chevron and Exxon Mobil

The week ends with several Big Energy updates, but none bigger than Chevron (CVX, $72.57) and Exxon Mobil (XOM, $34.16), who report ahead of the Oct. 30 opening bell. Both companies continue to be hampered by sagging oil prices amid slack demand, which has been the case ever since early on in the COVID outbreak.

Here’s a look at what Wall Street is looking for:

Chevron: Analysts are expecting revenues of $25.65 billion (-29.0%) and a loss of 22 cents per share (from a $1.55 profit in the year-ago quarter).

“CVX offers one of the strongest balance sheet among the Majors, a reasonably low breakeven, and an attractive and low-risk growth outlook of short-cycle investment opportunities anchored by its massive legacy position in the Permian Basin once oil prices improve,” write Credit Suisse analysts (Outperform). Complementing its medium-term growth profile is a substantial current liquidity position, with net debt/cap and net debt leverage below peers and remaining in check despite the recent oil price weakness. … however, refining is expected to remain challenged near term.”

Exxon Mobil: Analysts are expecting revenues of $45.58 billion (-29.9%) and a loss of 21 cents per share (from a 67-cent profit in the year-ago quarter).

The real story here is whether Exxon is going to maintain its status among the Dividend Aristocrats by raising its payout, which it has yet to do in 2020.

Goldman Sachs analyst Neil Mehta, who recently upgraded the stock from Sell to Neutral, and raised his price target from $33 to $36, believes the company is less likely to try to raise its payout amid its cash issues.

“Although we see the dividend as an important piece of the capital allocation framework, we believe a variable dividend policy would allow for cash to be returned to shareholders while still allowing the company to balance investment in attractive projects that could contribute to long term value and returns generation for Exxon,” he writes.

Other Noteworthy Reports

Reporting schedules provided by Briefing.com and company websites. Earnings estimate data provided by Thomson Reuters via Yahoo! Finance, and FactSet via MarketWatch.

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