SJW (SJW) Misses Q4 Earnings and Revenue Estimates

This story originally appeared on Zacks

SJW (SJW) came out with quarterly earnings of $0.42 per share, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.48 per share. This compares to earnings of $0.46 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items.

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This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of -12.50%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this parent of San Jose Water Co. Would post earnings of $0.71 per share when it actually produced earnings of $0.64, delivering a surprise of -9.86%.

Over the last four quarters, the company has not been able to surpass consensus EPS estimates.

SJW, which belongs to the Zacks Utility – Water Supply industry, posted revenues of $139.74 million for the quarter ended December 2021, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.81%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $135.7 million. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates just once over the last four quarters.

The sustainability of the stock’s immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management’s commentary on the earnings call.

SJW shares have lost about 11.9% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500’s decline of -6.1%.

What’s Next for SJW?

While SJW has underperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors’ minds is: what’s next for the stock?

There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company’s earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately.

Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions.

Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for SJW: favorable. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company’s just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to outperform the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

It will be interesting to see how estimates for the coming quarters and current fiscal year change in the days ahead. The current consensus EPS estimate is $0.09 on $118 million in revenues for the coming quarter and $2.40 on $600.94 million in revenues for the current fiscal year.

Investors should be mindful of the fact that the outlook for the industry can have a material impact on the performance of the stock as well. In terms of the Zacks Industry Rank, Utility – Water Supply is currently in the bottom 32% of the 250 plus Zacks industries. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1.

Essential Utilities (WTRG), another stock in the same industry, has yet to report results for the quarter ended December 2021. The results are expected to be released on February 23.

This water utility is expected to post quarterly earnings of $0.43 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of -6.5%. The consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has remained unchanged over the last 30 days.

Essential Utilities’ revenues are expected to be $497 million, up 4.9% from the year-ago quarter.

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