5 big earnings hits: Analysts wary after Cisco's beat; retailers a mixed bag
Here is your Pro Recap of the biggest earnings reports you may have missed this week and how analysts responded: numbers out of Cisco, Walmart, Home Depot, and Applied Materials.
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Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) shares climbed 3.3% Thursday after the tech behemoth sailed past Wall Street expectations for the fiscal fourth quarter thanks to a growing enterprise appetite for AI, security, and cloud.
The company said adjusted earnings per share came to $1.14 — $0.08 better than consensus — on revenue of $15.2 billion which edged past the $15.05B average target.
Earnings guidance for Q1 topped expectations at $1.02 to $1.04 per share — the Street was looking for $0.99 — and revenue of $14.5B to $14.7B was in line with targets. Full-year expectations were for earnings of $4.01 to $4.08 per share on sales of $57B to $58.2B; analysts were seeking $4.04 per share on $58.4B in revenue.
CEO Chuck Robbins said on the earnings call that Cisco is poised for «further share gains» in campus switching, wireless LAN, and SP routing, having gained «over 3 percentage points of market share» vs. the prior year in those key areas, and believes the company is «super well positioned» on AI.
Following these results, analysts at BofA, Citi, and KeyBanc all kept their neutral ratings on the stock.
BofA and KeyBanc highlighted the company's solid execution and innovation, but BofA sees «additional risk to estimates» given a «diminishing backlog contribution» that would necessitate a «significant order recovery throughout F24, which might not materialize.» And KeyBanc is staying neutral until it sees «move consistent consistent signs of share gains and improved visibility into
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