What To Expect For Alliance Data (ADS) This Earnings Season?

Alliance Data Systems Corporation (NYSE:ADS) is slated to report first-quarter 2018 results on Apr 19, before the market opens. Last quarter, the company delivered a positive earnings surprise of 25.20%.

Let’s see, how things are shaping up for this announcement.

Card Receivables — accounting for more than 50% of the company’s revenues — are likely to have driven the company’s results. Growing private label card portfolio with a number of wins from both the new and the existing clients will support a solid performance at Card Receivables segment.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for average credit card receivables is expected to grow 13.1% to $17.7 billion in the quarter to be reported. The consensus mark for operating income is expected to increase 14.3% on 11.7% higher card service revenues.

We expect a rise in operating expenses, attributable to the company’s strategic initiatives including expansion efforts as well as higher cost of operations plus an increased general and administrative expense. This in turn might restrict the operating margin growth.

AIR MILES issued were lower than expected in 2017 and the company announced to pursue a promotional activity to fuel issuance growth. However, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for AIR MILES issued is likely to dip 1.4% in the first quarter. Also, heightened promotional activity will escalate costs.

Netherlands-based brand loyalty business and AIR MILES business in Canada are expected to have boosted results at BrandLoyalty. Backlog at the segment remained strong for the first quarter as rollout of Disney product offering was pushed to 2018.

A lower tax incidence owing to the tax reform to drop tax rate has likely improved the bottom line.

Additionally, the company anticipates growth in auto, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and data supporting Epsilon segments. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Epsilon revenues is expected to rise 4.3% year over year to $552 million.

The consensus mark for earnings is pegged at $4.57 on revenues of $1.95 billion, reflecting a respective increase of year over year.

The company boasts a track record of delivering positive surprises in all the last four quarters with an average beat of 8.96%.

Alliance Data Systems Corporation Price and EPS Surprise

What Our Quantitative Model States

Our proven model does not conclusively show that Alliance Data is likely to beat on earnings this quarter. This is because a stock needs to have both a positive Earnings ESP and a favorable Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) for this to happen. But that is not the case here as you will see below.

Zacks ESP: Alliance Data has an Earnings ESP of -7.21%. This is because the Most Accurate estimate is pegged at $4.24, lower than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $4.57. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they are reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

Zacks Rank: Alliance Data holds a Zacks Rank #4, which decreases the predictive power of ESP. We caution against Sell-rated stocks (#4 or 5) going into the earnings announcement, especially when the company is seeing negative estimate revisions.

Stocks to Consider

Some stocks worth considering from the finance transaction service industry with the right combination of elements to surpass estimates in the next releases are as follows:

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) is set to report fiscal second-quarter earnings on Apr 25. The stock has an Earnings ESP of +2.36% and a Zacks Rank #2. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here

WEX Inc. (NYSE:WEX) is set to report first-quarter earnings on Apr 26. This #3 Ranked stock has an Earnings ESP of +1.61%.

Vantiv, Inc. (NYSE:WP) has an Earnings ESP of +0.78%. This #3 Ranked company is set to report first-quarter earnings on Apr 25.

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