A star strategy for predicting earnings season hits and misses

It’s January and the beginning, once again, of a busy period for financial market participants as earnings season anticipation begins.

Earnings surprises and consensus revisions are well-known drivers of stock price movements, and StarMine has a proven ability to predict these surprises and revisions, via SmartEstimate®.

This model is more accurate than the consensus, as it puts more weight on recent forecasts from top-rated analysts.

StarMine provides a suite of proprietary alpha-generating analytics and models spanning sectors, regions and markets

Every quarter, our StarMine team reveals 10 companies with a high probability of reporting quarterly earnings surprises in the direction that is called: five likely to beat the analysts’ consensus estimate and five likely to fall short.

When SmartEstimates® diverge significantly from Consensus, you can anticipate the occurrence of earnings surprises with an accuracy rate of 70 percent.

Revenue SmartEstimates® are even more predictive of surprises, with a historical accuracy rate of 78 percent.

Let’s take a look at the analysis.

Companies picked for earning hits

The StarMine team selected five North American companies, using Eikon Screener, that are expected to beat 2017 Q4 earnings estimates, based on SmartEstimate® and Predicted Surprise data.

The North American selections for 2017 Q3 were 100 percent accurate. Historically (since 2011 Q4), the picks have demonstrated an accuracy rate of about 80.8 percent giving investors an edge ahead of earnings announcements.

The North American picks for positive Predicted Surprises in 2017 Q4 are:

Caterpillar Inc (CAT.N); T-Mobile US Inc (TMUS.O); Kosmos Energy Ltd (KOS.N); Activision Blizzard Inc (ATVI.O); and Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc (CRZO.O).

Keep up-to-date with all the most current articles and reports produced by the research team with Lipper Alpha Insight Newsletters

Companies picked for earnings misses

The StarMine team also selected five North American companies that are expected to miss 2017 Q4 earnings estimates.

Get access to trusted news, data and analytics, all filtered by relevance to your exact needs with Eikon

The North American selections for 2017 Q3 misses were 41.2 percentage points above the S&P 500’s 17 Q3 earnings miss rate.

Historically (since 2011 Q4), the negative Predicted Surprise picks have demonstrated an accuracy rate of about 64.4 percent, giving investors an edge ahead of earnings announcements.

The North American picks for negative Predicted Surprises in 2017 Q4 are:

PG&E Corp (PCG.N); Expedia Inc (EXPE.O); Discovery Communications Inc (DISCK.O); TransAlta Corp (TA.TO); GTT Communications Inc (GTT.N).

Learn more about our StarMine Quantitative Analytics and how you can navigate through earnings season.