Yahoo Finance Investors Are Watching Facebook Inc (FB) and These 4 Stocks This Week
If you're tired of chewing on central-bank policy, rest easy -- corporate earnings are slowly starting to ramp back up, and this week has a small but enticing lineup of blue chips revealing their latest financial pictures. But while the spotlight will largely be on a handful of big-name consumer companies, one of the biggest potential headlines could come from a company not even reporting earnings this week -- social media giant Facebook Inc ( FB).
BlackBerry (BBRY). BlackBerry is to report fiscal second-quarter earnings on Wednesday before the markets open, but that might be a second billing.
That's because BlackBerry could finally announce that it's done with the smartphone business for good.
A little less than a year ago, CEO John Chen hinted at an ultimatum for his company's smartphone division: Sell 5 million units per year and get profitable, or BBRY could go software-only. This April, he kept that line when he told CNBC, "If by September, I couldn't find a way to get there, then I need to seriously consider being a software company only."
[Read: What Every Investor Should Know About Earnings Reports.]
That seems unlikely given that the first quarter's device sales reached just 500,000 units, and only 600,000 in the period before that.
If that fate does come to pass, it would mark the bitter end of a long, painful decline for what once was viewed as one of the world's top smartphone producers. BlackBerry's global market share (by operating system) stood at more than 20 percent back in 2009; today, it registers at at 0.1 percent.
That pain has in large part come thanks to the rise of Apple's ( AAPL) iPhone, so any official announcement would put a final sour note on the reaction of BlackBerry's then-co-CEO, Jim Balsillie, to the original iPhones's unveiling in 2007: "It's OK -- we'll be fine."
Nike (NKE). Nike is off by double digits in 2016, and the chances of a turnaround before year's end don't look all that swell.
Canaccord Genuity analyst Camilo Lyon recently reduced his price target on Nike shares from $56 to $52. He isn't advising investors to sell, but he doesn't like the way the fiscal first quarter is shaping up.
Lyon's biggest concerns are an "innovation lull" and slowing sales that have forced Nike to cut prices on LeBron James and Kevin Durant sneakers. Under Armour ( UA) is putting some of that pressure on thanks to Steph Curry -- a smirk-worthy twist considering how much the Curry 2 Low "Chef" shoes were lampooned for being "middle-aged white dad shoes."
Value looks just as problematic as growth. Despite this year's pullback, NKE still trades at roughly 20 times next year's projected earnings and a price/earnings-growth ratio of 1.6. This while offering a mere 1.1 percent in dividends.
The only thing that can help Nike when it reports Tuesday afternoon? Analysts expect Nike's profits to pull back by about 16 percent, and revenues are projected to grow just 5.5 percent. If NKE can shatter those estimates and alter the narrative, it might change a few minds in the process.
Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST). In May, the warehousing company was in the midst of a 15 percent slump. COST shares are doing better now than they were then, but not without some headaches.
Costco climbed nearly 20 percent over the course of about three months thanks mostly to a third-quarter earnings beat in late May that saw comps improvement outdo competitor Sam's Club, then a June comps reading that was flat when Wall Street was expecting a 1.5 percent decline.
[See: 20 Awesome Dividend Stocks for Guaranteed Income.]
However, Costco has been struggling in the public eye for months amid a sloppy transition to Visa ( V) branded cards. The company logged 1.5 million customer service calls within just two days of their June release, then faced a smaller snafu in August when cardholders received emails saying their accounts were closing -- but the accounts in question belonged to other customers.
Shares are off about 10 percent in the past month, mostly prompted by Costco's disappointing announcement that sales grew just 2 percent in the fourth quarter.
Earnings are expected to be flat when the company reports Thursday after the bell. But a significant beat on the bottom line could put COST on the comeback trail.
PepsiCo (PEP). Pepsi shares have quietly put together a nice 2016 campaign, up 7 percent to edge out the Standard & Poor's 500 index, and without much lurching along the way. And this quarter is set up to let Pepsi keep pushing the rock up the hill.
Pepsi reports on Thursday morning, and analysts expect both profits and revenues to decline by about 3 percent, which should be an easy hurdle to clear.
For one, Pepsi might get a jolt from Diet Pepsi, which will have aspartame once again after consumers complained about the taste when PepsiCo removed the artificial sweetener. PEP also has been battling fizzy-drink deterioration by getting healthy, via initiatives such as partnering with smoothie company BarFresh Food Group.
Not to mention, the company's snacks division can help it better absorb the broad malaise in soft drinks better than pure-play rivals like Coca-Cola Co. ( KO).
Facebook (FB). Facebook doesn't report earnings anytime soon, but FB shares still bear watching in the coming days to see whether there's any additional fallout from last week's revelation.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook "vastly overestimated" video ad viewing times since 2014, according to its sources. FB actually admitted to issues with how it was calculating video view time in a post a few weeks ago. After that, however, several companies pressed the social media company for more info, and FB said it likely was overestimating "average duration of video viewed" by "between 60 and 80 percent," the WSJ reported.
The consensus among about a dozen social marketing executives was that the resulting uproar actually was much ado about nothing -- that "the error wouldn't necessarily impact spend if marketers looked at analytics more holistically."
Friday's reactionary 1.6 percent selloff was hardly a disaster -- Facebook has had a number of larger single-day drops this year alone.
However, it's a rare gaffe by a company that has provided consistently stellar data to investors for several quarters. And a lack of confidence is the last thing FB needs when shares are already struggling to get over the hurdle of its all-time high set earlier this month.
[See: 13 Ways to Take the Emotions Out of Investing.]
Friday's dip sent Facebook stock to its short-term 20-day moving average, which shares have tested as support numerous times in the past couple of months. Follow-through selling on Monday could trigger a deeper pullback.
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