What to Expect From Schlumberger, Southwestern Energy Results

After Thursday’s closing bell, two energy companies, one a producer and the other a services company, are scheduled to release quarterly results. One is tagged to post a smaller year-over-year loss and the other to report a smaller year-over-year gain.

Heavily traded natural gas producer Southwestern Energy Co. (NYSE: SWN) is forecast to post a net loss of $0.01, compared with a loss in the year-ago quarter of $0.02. Revenues are forecast to drop from $764 million to $519.68 million. The company’s shares have added nearly 75% to their price since the beginning of the year, primarily on expectations for an increase in natural gas prices.

Schlumberger Ltd. (NYSE: SLB) is the largest U.S.-traded oilfield services company, and analysts are looking for earnings per share of $0.21 and revenues of $7.13 billion. In the same quarter last year, the company reported earnings of $0.88 per share and $9.01 billion in revenue. Schlumberger has managed to post small earnings beats in each of the past three quarters, though, and probably has gotten a slight boost from Halliburton Co.’s (NYSE: HAL) results reported on Monday.

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A few analysts have recently weighed in with price target increases on Southwestern:

• Baird raised its price target from $10 to $13.
• Goldman Sachs raised its price target from $11.00 to $11.75.
• Scotia Howard Weil increased its price target to $13 from $11.

Southwestern’s consensus price target is $12.36, although these recent changes may not yet be included. The stock’s 52-week range is $5.00 to $20.07.

There are no new price targets for Schlumberger, but analysts have reacted positively to Halliburton’s results. If Schlumberger can beat a pretty low bar and, as Halliburton did, say that the situation in the United States is getting better, then we should be seeing some similar boosts to Schlumberger’s targets.

Here’s how Halliburton stacks up now:

• BMO Capital raised its price target from $44 to $50.
• Deutsche Bank lifted its price target from $49 to $50.
• Goldman Sachs rates the stock a Buy and raised its target from $46.00 to $49.50.
• JPMorgan lifted its price target from $38 to $40.
• Raymond James boosted its price target to $54 from $51.
• Seaport Global Securities raised its price target from $45 to $50.

Schlumberger’s consensus price target is $88.03, and the stock closed at $80.60 on Wednesday. The 52-week range is $59.60 to $86.61.

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