Johnson & Johnson First Quarter Earnings Sneak Peek

S&P 500 (NYSE:SPY) component Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) will unveil its latest earnings on Tuesday, April 17, 2012. Johnson & Johnson is a holding company involved in the research and development, manufacture and sale of a range of health care products.

Johnson & Johnson Earnings Preview Cheat Sheet

Wall St. Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is for net income of $1.36 per share, a rise of 0.7% from the company’s actual earnings for the year-ago quarter. During the past three months, the average estimate has moved up from $1.33. Between one and three months ago, the average estimate moved up. It has risen from $1.35 during the last month. Analysts are projecting profit to rise by 2% compared to last year’s $5.10.

Past Earnings Performance: Last quarter, the company beat estimates by 3 cents, coming in at profit of $1.13 a share versus the estimate of net income of $1.10 a share. It marked the fourth straight quarter of beating estimates.

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Wall St. Revenue Expectations: On average, analysts predict $16.27 billion in revenue this quarter, a rise of 0.6% from the year-ago quarter. Analysts are forecasting total revenue of $66.4 billion for the year, a rise of 2.1% from last year’s revenue of $65.03 billion.

Analyst Ratings: Analysts are high on the stock, with 12 analysts rating it as a buy, none rating it as a sell and 11 rating it as a hold.

A Look Back: In the fourth quarter of the last fiscal year, profit fell 88.8% to $218 million (9 cents a share) from $1.94 billion (70 cents a share) the year earlier, but exceeded analyst expectations. Revenue rose 3.9% to $16.25 billion from $15.64 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 3.5% in the first quarter of the last fiscal year, 8.3% in the second quarter of the last fiscal year and 6.8% in the third quarter of the last fiscal year before increasing again in the fourth quarter of the last fiscal year of the last fiscal year.

Heading into this earnings announcement, net income has dropped 34.4% on average for the last four quarters.

Stock Price Performance: Between April 4, 2012 and April 11, 2012, the stock price dropped $1.26 (-1.9%), from $65.39 to $64.13. The stock price saw one of its best stretches over the last year between June 24, 2011 and July 5, 2011, when shares rose for seven straight days, increasing 3.9% (+$2.50) over that span. It saw one of its worst periods between July 22, 2011 and August 4, 2011 when shares fell for 10 straight days, dropping 7.3% (-$4.75) over that span.

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

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