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Earnings Previews: Ammo, Occidental, SolarEdge, Shopify

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Even though U.S. markets are closed Monday for the Presidents Day observance, more than 400 U.S.-traded companies are expected to announce prior quarter results during the shortened week.

Over the course of the week, many independent oil and gas exploration and production companies are scheduled to report, along with several consumer products firms, and one Dow Jones industrial component. We already have previewed three companies set to report before Tuesday’s opening bell, and this preview looks at three companies set to report after the closing bell on Tuesday or before Wednesday’s opening bell.
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Ammo

Ammo Inc. (NASDAQ: POWW) manufactures and sells handgun and long-gun ammunition and products for people who load their own ammo. While this is a relatively small company, with a market cap of around $640 million, Ammo saw its shares soar beginning in mid-March of last year. The stock jumped by about 233% in 2020 and has risen by another 191% in the first six weeks of 2021.

Over the past 12 months, shares have risen from $1.00 to $9.90 as of Thursday’s close. Shares spiked 28% on Thursday following the company’s announcement that it has signed a nonbinding letter of intent to acquire online gun auction site GunBroker.com. The company noted that the potential merger expands on its vertical integration strategy.

Ammo trades under analysts’ radar, with just one analyst who has a Hold rating on the stock, but no price target. That one analyst expects the company to post a loss per share of $0.03 for its third fiscal quarter on sales of $12 million. The analyst also expects the company to post a fiscal 2021 loss per share of $0.17.

The stock’s average daily volume is nearly 3 million shares, about double that of another ammo maker, Vista Outdoor, that reported a blockbuster quarter earlier this month.

Occidental Petroleum

After the closing bell on Tuesday, Occidental Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: OXY) will report its results. This is one of the 10 largest exploration and production companies in the country, with a market cap of around $23 billion.

Oxy’s stock dropped 58% last year to lay claim to the dubious distinction of being the second-worst-performing S&P 500 stock of 2020. Shares have risen by about 45% so far this year as crude oil prices have improved. The company’s $38 billion acquisition of Anadarko in 2019 loaded its balance sheet with debt, and low crude prices have made matters worse.

Analysts expect the company to post a quarterly loss of $0.58 a share, nearly double its loss of $0.30 a share in the same period of last year. The revenue estimate of $4.4 billion is more than a third lower than actual revenue in the year-ago quarter. For the full year, analysts are looking for a loss per share of $3.73 against a profit per share last year of $1.45, on sales of $17.7 billion, a decline of about 17%.

At Friday’s trading price of around $25.50, the stock trades at a multiple of 43 to expected 2021 earnings per share and a multiple of nearly 23 to forecast 2022 earnings. The stock’s consensus 12-month price target is $21.26.


SolarEdge

SolarEdge Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: SEDG) makes and sells a variety of products for solar photovoltaic installations, including optimized inverters that convert the direct current of solar modules into alternating current that can be sent to the grid.
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The company’s stock price jumped 236% last year, while competitor Enphase saw a jump of nearly double that. Shares took a bit of a hit in January when Tesla got into the inverter market and sliced 16% from SolarEdge’s share price. The dip was only temporary, though, and the stock has recovered nearly all of it.

For the fourth quarter, SolarEdge is forecast to report earnings per share (EPS) of $0.86 on sales of about $356 million. Compared to the fourth quarter of 2019, EPS would be down about 48% and revenue down almost 15%. For the full year, analysts are looking for EPS of $4.00, down 11% from 2019, on sales of $1.46 billion, up about 2%.

At a recent trading price of around $328, the stock is trading well above its consensus price target of $284.88. The current price represents a multiple of nearly 83 to expected 2020 earnings and 70 times expected 2021 earnings.

Shopify

Shopify Inc. (NYSE: SHOP), a provider of a cloud-based e-commerce platform for small and medium-sized businesses, has seen its shares soar by more than 5,500% since its May 2015 IPO. That $17 per share price has climbed to just over $1,451 in less than six years. The stock added nearly 185% last year alone.

One question investors might ask is, “How long can this go on?” When you consider that e-commerce remains a huge opportunity, even after 25 years of Amazon, Shopify’s run may turn out to be a marathon as well as a sprint.

When the company reports fourth-quarter results before the opening bell on Wednesday, analysts are expecting Shopify to report EPS of $1.24 on sales of $910 million. That’s a jump of nearly 300% in EPS and 80% in revenues. For the full year, EPS is forecast at $3.68, about 12-times higher than the $0.30 reported for 2019.

The stock has raced past its consensus price target of $1,140.62 and is within a hair’s breadth of the high target of $1,453. Shopify stock currently trades at nearly 400 times forecast 2020 earnings and 392 times expected 2021 EPS.

 

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