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Agilent (A) Gears Up for Q3 Earnings: What's in the Cards?

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Agilent Technologies (A - Free Report) is set to report fiscal third-quarter 2020 results on Aug 18. In the last reported quarter, it delivered an earnings surprise of 22.4%.

The stock outperformed earnings estimates thrice and matched once in the last four quarters, with the average surprise being 7.9%.

Trend in Estimate Revision

For the fiscal third quarter, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings has remained stable at 66 cents per share over the past 30 days. This indicates a decline of 13.2% from the year-ago reported figure.

The consensus mark for revenues is pegged at $1.21 billion, implying a decline of 4.7% from the year-ago reported figure.

Let’s see how things have shaped up for this announcement.

Agilent Technologies, Inc. Price and EPS Surprise

Agilent Technologies, Inc. Price and EPS Surprise

Agilent Technologies, Inc. price-eps-surprise | Agilent Technologies, Inc. Quote

Factors to Note

During the fiscal third quarter, Agilent took all the necessary steps to reduce expenses and protect the safety, health, and well being of employees as well as customers to address the COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts.

Its expanding product portfolio should have been a key growth driver. The company increased investments in fast-growing markets such as biopharma, which should have served as a tailwind for Agilent in the quarter.

Markedly, recovery in China continued in the quarter as lab operations and investments kept on resuming, in turn driving top-line growth.

However, the outlook for Europe and the United States remained challenging, particularly for new equipment parts across most end markets.

Nevertheless, the company’s Diagnostics and Genomics Group (DGG) is expected to have performed well in the to-be-reported quarter, driven by growth in pharma, as well as strength in genomics.

Agilent expanded its share in next-gen sequencing, which is expected to have driven the top line in the pathology business. Also, growth of the API business should have contributed to top-line growth in the quarter.

The company’s focus on aligning investments toward more attractive growth avenues and innovative product launches is expected to have aided its performance.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Agilent Cross Lab Group revenues is pegged at $445 million, indicating a decline of 1.3% year over year. The consensus mark for revenues from DGG is pegged at $253 million, indicating growth of 1.6% year over year, while the same for Life Sciences & Applied Markets Group is $507 million, indicating a 5.9% year-over-year decline.

What Our Model Says

Our proven model predicts an earnings beat for Agilent this time around. The combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) increases the odds of an earnings beat. That is the case here as you will see below.

Earnings ESP: The company has an Earnings ESP of +5.00%. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they’re reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

Zacks Rank: Currently, Agilent has a Zacks Rank #2.

Other Stocks That Warrant a Look

Here are a few other stocks worth considering, as our model shows that these too have the right combination of elements to deliver an earnings beat in the upcoming releases.

Deere & Company (DE - Free Report) has an Earnings ESP of +4.64% and a Zacks Rank #1. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

JD.com, Inc. (JD - Free Report) has an Earnings ESP of +13.79% and a Zacks Rank #1.

The Home Depot, Inc. (HD - Free Report) has an Earnings ESP of +17.13% and a Zacks Rank #2.

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