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PG&E (PCG) to Report Q1 Earnings: What's in the Offing?

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PG&E Corporation (PCG - Free Report) is scheduled to report first-quarter 2021 results on Apr 29, before market open.

In the last reported quarter, the company delivered an earnings surprise of 10.53%.

Moreover, the bottom line surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in two of the trailing four quarters and missed in the remaining two. The four-quarter earnings surprise is 10.21%, on average.

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

Factors Under Consideration

From the end of February 2021 to the most part of March, major parts of the company’s service territories experienced below-normal cold temperatures. This, in turn, is likely to have resulted in higher household expenditure on heating for the company’s customers, and thus likely to have boosted PG&E Corp.’s top line in the soon-to-be-reported quarter.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for first-quarter revenues is pegged at $4.76 billion, indicating 10.5% growth from the year-ago quarter’s reported figure.

On the flip side, PG&E has been witnessing increasing wildfire-related costs alongside other financing expenses over the past few quarters. Keeping up with this trend, toward the end of January, the company’s service territories witnessed severe back-to-back storms, which caused several outages in the region, while a few wildfire incidents also took place in California. Such wildfire-related costs and storm-related damages might have led the company to incur significant expenses, which are likely to have negatively impacted its bottom-line performance in the soon-to-be-reported quarter.

Further, its overall cost structure is expected to have escalated due to the prolonged economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the company's operations. Such expenses might have had an adverse impact on the company’s performance during the soon-to-be-reported quarter.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for PG&E’s first-quarter earnings is pegged at 28 cents per share, suggesting a 68.5% plunge from the year-ago quarter’s reported figure.

Earnings Whispers

Our proven model does not conclusively predict an earnings beat for PG&E this time around. The combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) increases the chances of an earnings beat. But that is not the case here as mentioned below.

Earnings ESP: PG&E has an Earnings ESP of 0.00%. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they’re reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

Zacks Rank: The company carries a Zacks Rank #3. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. Price and EPS Surprise

Stocks to Consider

Here are some players from the Utilities sector with the right combination of elements to post an earnings beat in the to-be-reported quarter.

CenterPoint Energy (CNP - Free Report) has an Earnings ESP of +4.52% and a Zacks Rank #3.

Xcel Energy (XEL - Free Report) has an Earnings ESP of +0.41% and a Zacks Rank #3.

Duke Energy (DUK - Free Report) has an Earnings ESP of +0.16% and a Zacks Rank #3.

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