Leading oilfield services company, Weatherford International Ltd. (WFT - Analyst Report) is set to report fourth-quarter 2014 results on Feb 4. Let’s see how things are shaping up prior to the announcement.
In the last quarter, the company’s earnings of 32 cents per share missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 33 cents. The results, however, improved from the year-earlier adjusted earnings of 23 cents. The earnings growth was boosted by improvement across all business areas barring Latin America.
Will Weatherford impress in the upcoming release after combating the challenges witnessed by it? Let’s see what factors might have influenced the earnings report this time around.
Past Quarter Flashback
With respect to the fourth quarter of 2014, Weatherford expects growth in its North American, Latin American, North Sea, Sub-Sahara Africa and the Middle Eastern areas. Weatherford expects to have reduced net debt to $7.0–$7.5 billion by year-end 2014.
However, being an oilfield machinery and equipment manufacturer, Weatherford’s business is positively correlated to crude price. The oil pricing environment was extremely weak during the entire fourth quarter and top energy companies have been cutting capex to deal with the situation. This in turn might have resulted in less work for the likes of National Weatherford.
Overall activities of Weatherford during the fourth quarter were inadequate to win analysts’ confidence. As a result, the Zacks Consensus Estimate declined to 33 cents from 38 cents per share over the last 60 days.
Earnings Whispers?
Our proven model does not conclusively show that Weatherford will beat on earnings in the fourth quarter. That is because a stock needs to have both a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) to be able to beat consensus estimates. That is not the case here as you will see below.
Zacks ESP: Earnings ESP, which represents the difference between the Most Accurate estimate and the Zacks Consensus Estimate, is -6.06%. This is because the Most Accurate estimate is at 31 cents per share while the Zacks Consensus Estimate is pegged higher at 33 cents per share.
Zacks Rank: Weatherford has a Zacks Rank #5 (Sell). Not only do we caution investors against Sell-rated (Rank #4 or 5) stocks going into the earnings announcement, a negative ESP also holds back our surprise prediction.