Earnings Next Week: Visa May Reverse Direction For a Fourth Straight Quarter
Earnings season continues next week with companies from Walt Disney
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PowerRating) to Northrop Grumman
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PowerRating) reporting results. However, investors will be looking to the end of the week for the most significant report: January’s Employment Report. The unemployment rate is expected to climb from December’s rate of 7.2% as companies continue to slash jobs in every area of the economy.
As for earnings, Motorola Inc.
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PowerRating) is expected to report fourth-quarter results before the market opens on Tuesday. The cell-phone maker is expected to report even earnings, compared with 14 cents a share a year ago, on revenue of $7.2 billion, according to Thomson Reuters. Longs should be wary of Motorola going into earnings. The stock has put up a mixed performance between its extended-hours trade and the following regular session after an earnings event. It has widened its move in 10 of the last 19 earnings-events, and only four of those moves were higher. The near-term is also mixed, with two widening moves and two narrowing. On October 30, shares rose 2.5% in the pre-market before closing the regular session down 5.3%.
Visa Inc.
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PowerRating) will report first-quarter results on Wednesday after the market close and is expected to report earnings of 66 cents per share on revenue of $1.7 billion. Visa is not a stock for after-hours traders to bet the house on as it has demonstrated a tendency to see its earnings-driven after-hours moves post sharp reversals in next-day regular session trade, doing so in three of the past three quarterly reports. In the three quarterly reports MidnightTrader.com has tracked thus far, the stock has once turned from an after-hours upside move to a next day closing decline and twice seen its evening decline reverse to end the following regular session to the upside.
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Cassie Slane is a Senior Editor at www.MidnightTrader.com.