Will AT&T (T) Disappoint Investors This Earnings Season?
Zacks Investment Research | Apr 20, 2017 10:46PM ET
AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) – a U.S. telecom giant – is scheduled to report first-quarter 2017 financial numbers on Apr 25, after market close.
AT&T’s bottom line matched the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three of the previous four quarters, with an average beat of 1.09%. The company’s earnings surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate only in the year-ago quarter.
Let’s see how things are shaping up for this announcement.
Factors Likely to Influence this Quarter
AT&T continues to operate in a saturated wireless market where spectrum crunch is a big issue. Moreover, loss in access lines, stringent regulatory measures and union issues are major headwinds. The company has also been facing intense competition, compelling it to lower the price of its services due to lack of demand. It will be interesting to watch whether AT&T’s upcoming results can tide over these challenges. We believe these factors have led to the company’s declining price performance. Over the past three months, shares of AT&T declined 3.9% compared with the Zacks categorized Earnings ESP Filter .
Zacks Rank : AT&T has a Zacks Rank #3 which increases the predictive power of ESP. However, the company’s negative ESP makes surprise prediction difficult.
We caution against stocks with a Zacks Rank #4 or 5 (Sell rated) going into the earnings announcement, especially when the company is seeing negative estimate revisions.
AT&T Inc. Price and EPS Surprise
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