Back to top

Image: Bigstock

How Damaging Has Coronavirus Been to Wolverine (WWW) Q1 Earnings?

Read MoreHide Full Article

Wolverine World Wide, Inc. (WWW - Free Report) is scheduled to report first-quarter 2020 numbers on Apr 22, before the opening bell. The company has a trailing four-quarter positive earnings surprise of 4.1%, on average. However, it reported in-line earnings in the preceding quarter.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its first-quarter earnings is pegged at 25 cents, suggesting a decline of nearly 49% from the year-ago quarter. Also, the consensus estimate moved south by 5 cents over the past 30 days. Moreover, the consensus mark for quarterly revenues is at $481.6 million, which indicates an 8% decrease from the year-ago quarter’s tally.

Key Factors

Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, Wolverine shut its retail outlets, which is a fleet of roughly 90 stores representing below $100 million of annual revenues. In addition, the company has postponed majority of its capital projects, lowered inventory receipts, put share repurchases on hold and curbed operating expenses. Loss of sales from closed stores is likely to have weighed on the company’s performance in the first quarter. Apparently, the consensus estimate for Wolverine Michigan Group and Wolverine Boston Group revenues is pegged at $292 million and $197 million, respectively, indicating a decline of 3.5% and 3.8% from the same quarter a year ago.

Nevertheless, Wolverine’s e-commerce sales are likely to offset the downside to a certain extent. Management had cited that supply chain, logistics and distribution centers are operational and are serving customers, particularly through owned and third-party on-line channels. These channels represent about 40% of the company’s overall U.S. sales. Impressively, the company saw mid-teens e-commerce growth in the quarter under review, driven by solid product offerings. Also, its work boot category, reflecting 15% of total revenues, has seen increased on-line demand for core work, military and more. In addition, the company is taking proactive measures like strengthening liquidity to sail through this rough phase.

What Our Zacks Model Says

Our proven model doesn’t conclusively predict an earnings beat for Wolverine 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. But that’s not the case here. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they’re reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

Wolverine carries a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell) and Earnings ESP of -32.93%.

Stocks With Favorable Combination

Here are a few companies you may want to consider, as our model shows that these have the right combination to post an earnings beat:

Casa Systems, Inc. has an Earnings ESP of +24.73% and a Zacks Rank #1. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Prestige Consumer Healthcare Inc. (PBH - Free Report) has an Earnings ESP of +3.38% and a Zacks Rank #2.

Funko, Inc. (FNKO - Free Report) has an Earnings ESP of +22.88% and a Zacks Rank #3.

Breakout Biotech Stocks with Triple-Digit Profit Potential

The biotech sector is projected to surge beyond $775 billion by 2024 as scientists develop treatments for thousands of diseases. They’re also finding ways to edit the human genome to literally erase our vulnerability to these diseases.

Zacks has just released Century of Biology: 7 Biotech Stocks to Buy Right Now to help investors profit from 7 stocks poised for outperformance. Our recent biotech recommendations have produced gains of +50%, +83% and +164% in as little as 2 months. The stocks in this report could perform even better.

See these 7 breakthrough stocks now>>

Published in