United Continental Holdings Inc. (NYSE: UAL) is scheduled to release its second-quarter financial results after the markets close on Tuesday. The consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters are $3.06 in earnings per share (EPS) and $10.72 billion in revenue. The same period of last year reportedly had $2.75 in EPS and $10.00 billion in revenue.
During this past quarter, Chief Financial Officer Andrew Levy left the company. Levy leaves behind what some consider one of the weakest large public corporation CEOs in America — Oscar Munoz. Munoz has presided over a number of public relations disasters that undermined the company’s brands and probably cost him the board chair position. The performance of United Airlines has been poor against its peer group. Levy had been chief financial officer for nearly two years. From appearances, it looks like Levy left in place of Munoz.
Munoz said in the most recent earnings report:
The exceptional operational performance United’s employees delivered over the past quarter is impressive. Even more so when we consider United achieved the best departure performance among our largest competitors despite four nor’easters and other weather disruptions. With our first-quarter financial results and our increased confidence in the outlook for the remainder of the year, we are tightening our adjusted EPS guidance range for the full year to $7.00 to $8.50. We continue to execute our strategy to strengthen and grow our domestic network, drive asset efficiency and productivity, while also continuing our focus on our customers.
Excluding Tuesday’s move, United Continental has underperformed the broad markets, with the stock down about 9.5% year to date. Over the past 52 weeks, the stock is down only about 8.0%.
A few analysts weighed in on the stock ahead of the earnings report:
- Barclays has an Overweight rating with a $78 price target.
- Morgan Stanley has an Equal Weight rating and a $76 target.
- Deutsche Bank has a Hold rating with a $74 target price.
- Buckingham Research has a Buy rating and a $96 target.
- Citigroup has a Buy rating with an $87 target price.
- JPMorgan has a Buy rating.
Shares of United were last seen up about 1% at $72.89, with a consensus analyst price target of $84.47 and a 52-week trading range of $56.51 to $79.68.
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