Earnings to Watch Next Week: Palo Alto Networks, Home Depot, Nvidia and Salesforce in Focus

• Monday (February 22)
• Tuesday (February 23)
• Wednesday (February 24)
• Thursday (February 25)
• Friday (February 26)

Earnings Calendar For The Week Of February 22

Monday (February 22)

IN THE SPOTLIGHT: PALO ALTO NETWORKS

The Santa Clara, California-based cybersecurity company is expected to report a profit of $1.43 per share in the fiscal second quarter, which represents year-over-year growth of over 20% from $1.19 per share seen in the same quarter a year ago.

The global cybersecurity leader would post year-over-year revenue growth of over 20% to $985.681 million.

“A rapidly growing Next-Gen Security platform plus a stable core network security business remains the equation for durable 20%+ billings growth heading into the FQ2 print. More clarity into the dual growth engines should drive further multiple expansion, with our SoTP valuation yielding a $515 price target,” noted Keith Weiss, equity analyst at Morgan Stanley.

“Palo Alto Networks offers a disruptive platform, well-positioned to address the evolving threat landscape. We believe Palo Alto Networks will continue to differentiate itself from its peers as it proves out a broader TAM around a NextGen Security Platform (and executing to that opportunity). With the strong billings base and the continued drive towards higher operating margins, we remain confident in the durability of our FCF estimates. Currently trading at 22x CY22e FCF vs. our model which looks for 18% FCF CAGR from CY21-26e and terminal 23x CY26e FCF, we continue to see attractive risk/reward in PANW shares.”

TAKE A LOOK AT OUR EARNINGS CALENDAR FOR THE FULL RELEASES FOR THE FEBRUARY 22

Tuesday (February 23)

IN THE SPOTLIGHT: HOME DEPOT

The U.S. largest home improvement retailer is expected to report a profit of $2.61 per share in the fourth quarter, which represents year-over-year growth of over 14% from $2.28 per share seen in the same quarter a year ago. In the last four consecutive quarters, on average, the company has delivered an earnings surprise of 3.60%.

The Cobb County, Georgia-based company’s revenue would surge more than 18% to $30.45 billion.

“Home Depot has witnessed continued strong demand for home-improvement projects as customers spent more time at home during the coronavirus pandemic. The company has been gaining from the high-demand environment, driven by investments in its business. This coupled with broad-based strength across stores and geographies has been boosting comparable sales (comps) performance,” noted analysts at Zacks Equity Research.

“Amid the pandemic, customers have been blending the physical and digital elements of the shopping experience more than ever before making the company’s interconnected One Home Depot strategy the most relevant. Its interconnected retail strategy and underlying technology infrastructure have helped consistently boost web traffic in the past six months. Additionally, it has been benefiting from enhanced delivery and fulfilment options to provide a robust interconnected experience. Gains from these efforts are likely to have aided the company’s sales and earnings performance in the fiscal fourth quarter.”

TAKE A LOOK AT OUR EARNINGS CALENDAR FOR THE FULL RELEASES FOR THE FEBRUARY 23

Wednesday (February 24)

IN THE SPOTLIGHT: NVIDIA

The Santa Clara, California- based multinational technology company is expected to report a profit of $2.80 per share in the fiscal fourth quarter, which represents year-over-year growth of over 48% from $1.89 per share seen in the same quarter a year ago.

The company, which designs graphics processing units for the gaming and professional markets, as well as system on a chip unit for the mobile computing and automotive market, forecasts revenue of $4.8 billion.

“NVIDIA‘s fiscal fourth-quarter performance is likely to have benefited from growth across all of its business segments except the Automotive and Professional Visualization units. NVIDIA is also anticipated to have benefited from strength in its data-centre business on the growing adoption of cloud-based solutions amid the coronavirus crisis-induced work-from-home wave. Increase in Hyperscale demand and growing adoption in the inference market are likely to have been tailwinds during the to-be-reported quarter,” noted analysts at Zacks Equity Research.

“Additionally, the pandemic-induced remote-working wave is likely to have bolstered sales of graphic chips utilized in desktops and laptops. This, in turn, is anticipated to have aided the quarterly performance. Nonetheless, disruptions in retail channel sales due to lockdown and social-distancing measures implemented by governments across the world to contain the spread of coronavirus might have partially offset the benefit of solid demand for the remote-working and online-learning hardware infrastructure.”

TAKE A LOOK AT OUR EARNINGS CALENDAR FOR THE FULL RELEASES FOR THE FEBRUARY 24

Thursday (February 25)

IN THE SPOTLIGHT: SALESFORCE.COM

The San Francisco, California-based global cloud computing company is expected to report a profit of $0.75 in the fourth quarter, which represents year-over-year growth of about 14% from $0.66 per share seen in the same quarter a year ago.

The company, which develops CRM solutions and provides business software on a subscription basis, would post revenue growth of 17% to nearly $5.7 billion.

“While Salesforce remains one of our best secularly positioned names given enterprise IT spend prioritized towards digital transformation, we see current valuation reflective of long-term share gains and achieving management’s target for $50 billion revenue in CY25,” said Keith Weiss, equity analyst at Morgan Stanley.

“At CRM‘s current scale and market cap, an increasing focus on FCF and earnings is necessary for further price appreciation, in our view. However, the recent large ($27 billion) and dilutive acquisition of Slack makes margin expansion in the near to medium term less likely. We look for greater clarity and confidence into revenue growth and margin framework at CRM in order to get more constructive.”

TAKE A LOOK AT OUR EARNINGS CALENDAR FOR THE FULL RELEASES FOR THE FEBRUARY 25

Friday (February 26)