Ryder System, Inc. Ris scheduled to report first-quarter 2018 results on Apr 24, before the market opens.
In the fourth quarter of 2017, the company delivered a positive earnings surprise of 1.48%. Moreover, it boasts an impressive earnings history, having outperformed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three of the last four quarters with an average beat of 2.
However, things do not seem bright for the company this quarter. The stock has also seen the Zacks Consensus Estimate being revised 9.3% downward in the last 60 days.
Factors at Play
Weak market conditions are a challenge for Ryder’s used vehicle sales. This is further expected to hamper results in the first quarter. Notably, the company projects adjusted earnings per share in the band of 83-90 cents, falling way below $1.37, reported in the fourth quarter of 2017.
Ryder is likely to spend heavily on capital expenditure in the current year due to higher growth and replacements costs in lease as well as rental. The increased capital expenses are likely to burden the bottom line in 2018, effects of which might surface in the quarter to be reported.
Additionally, the company’s high debt-to-equity ratio (expressed as percentage) is anticipated to hurt results in the to-be-reported quarter. The metric lies well above the industry’s average as well as the S&P 500 index’s figure.
The new tax law is, however, a positive for Ryder and might aid first-quarter results. Buoyed by the new law, Ryder hiked its quarterly cash dividend by 6 cents to 52 cents per share in February.
Earnings Whispers
Our proven model does not conclusively show that Ryder is likely to beat estimates in the soon to-be-reported quarter. This is because a stock needs to have both a positive Earnings ESPand a solid Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) for this to happen. But that is not the case here as elaborated below.
Zacks ESP: Ryder has an Earnings ESP of -0.95% as the Most Accurate estimate stands at 87 cents per share, lower than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 88 cents. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they’re reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.
Zacks Rank: Ryder carries a Zacks Rank #3, which increases the predictive power of ESP. However, combined with a negative ESP leaves surprise prediction inconclusive.
We caution against Sell-rated stocks (#4 or 5) going into an earnings announcement, especially when the company is seeing negative estimate revisions.