Fast food chain El Pollo Loco (NASDAQ:LOCO) will be reporting earnings tomorrow after market hours. Here’s what to expect.
El Pollo Loco beat analysts’ revenue expectations by 1.5% last quarter, reporting revenues of $122.2 million, flat year on year. It was an exceptional quarter for the company, with an impressive beat of analysts’ EBITDA estimates and a decent beat of analysts’ earnings estimates.
Is El Pollo Loco a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free.
This quarter, analysts are expecting El Pollo Loco’s revenue to be flat year on year at $121 million, in line with its flat revenue from the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $0.17 per share.
The majority of analysts covering the company have reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business to stay the course heading into earnings. El Pollo Loco has missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates twice over the last two years.
Looking at El Pollo Loco’s peers in the restaurants segment, some have already reported their Q3 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. Domino's delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 5.1%, missing analysts’ expectations by 1.6%, and McDonald's reported revenues up 2.7%, in line with consensus estimates. Domino's traded up 4% following the results.
Read our full analysis of Domino’s results here and McDonald’s results here.
There has been positive sentiment among investors in the restaurants segment, with share prices up 4.2% on average over the last month. El Pollo Loco is down 7.7% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $13.75 (compared to the current share price of $12.61).
Here at StockStory, we certainly understand the potential of thematic investing. Diverse winners from Microsoft (MSFT) to Alphabet (GOOG), Coca-Cola (KO) to Monster Beverage (MNST) could all have been identified as promising growth stories with a megatrend driving the growth. So, in that spirit, we’ve identified a relatively under-the-radar profitable growth stock benefitting from the rise of AI, available to you FREE via this link.