Abbott Labs Quarterly Earnings on Deck

S&P 500 (NYSE:SPY) component Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) will unveil its latest earnings on Wednesday, July 18, 2012. Abbott Laboratories is a pharmaceuticals health care company, whose main line of business is in the discovery, development, manufacture, and sale of a broad range of health care products. Its customers include wholesalers, hospitals and commercial laboratories.

Abbott Laboratories Earnings Preview Cheat Sheet

Wall St. Earnings Expectations: The average estimate of analysts is for profit of $1.21 per share, a rise of 8% from the company’s actual earnings for the same quarter a year ago. The average estimate is the same as three months ago. Between one and three months ago, the average estimate moved up. It has dropped from $1.22 during the last month. Analysts are projecting profit to rise by 8.1% compared to last year’s $5.05.

Past Earnings Performance: The company has beaten estimates the last four quarters and is coming off a quarter where it topped forecasts by 3 cents, reporting net income of $1.03 per share against a mean estimate of profit of $1 per share.

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A Look Back: In the first quarter, profit rose 43.8% to $1.24 billion (78 cents a share) from $863.8 million (55 cents a share) the year earlier, exceeding analyst expectations. Revenue rose 4.6% to $9.46 billion from $9.04 billion.

Stock Price Performance: Between April 17, 2012 and July 16, 2012, the stock price rose $5.63 (9.41%), from $59.85 to $65.48. The stock price saw one of its best stretches over the last year between March 7, 2012 and March 20, 2012, when shares rose for 10 straight days, increasing 7.4% (+$4.14) over that span. It saw one of its worst periods between July 22, 2011 and August 2, 2011 when shares fell for eight straight days, dropping 5.2% (-$2.75) over that span.

Wall St. Revenue Expectations: Analysts predict a rise of 2.4% in revenue from the year-earlier quarter to $9.85 billion.

Key Stats:

On the top line, the company is looking to build on four-straight revenue increases heading into this earnings announcement. Revenue rose 9% in the second quarter of the last fiscal year, 13.2% in the third quarter of the last fiscal year and 4.1% in the fourth quarter of the last fiscal year before increasing again in the first quarter.

The company enters this earnings announcement with steady profits recently. Net income has risen year-over-year average of 10.1% for the last four quarters.

Balance Sheet Analysis: The company’s current ratio of assets to liabilities came in at 1.53 last quarter. The current ratio is an indication of a firm’s liquidity and ability to meet creditor demands and generally, for every dollar the company owes in the short term, it has that figure available in assets that can be converted to cash in the short term. The company regressed in this liquidity measure from 1.54 in the fourth quarter of the last fiscal year to the last quarter driven in part by an increase in liabilities. Current liabilities increased 8.4% to $16.79 billion while assets rose 7.7% to $25.6 billion.

Analyst Ratings: With 10 analysts rating the stock as a buy, none rating it as a sell and 10 rating it as a hold, there are indications of a bullish outlook.

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(Company fundamentals by Xignite Financials. Earnings estimates provided by Zacks)

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