Maintenance and repair supplier W.W. Grainger (NYSE:GWW) will be reporting results tomorrow before market open. Here’s what you need to know.
W.W. Grainger met analysts’ revenue expectations last quarter, reporting revenues of $4.31 billion, up 3.1% year on year. It was a mixed quarter for the company, with full-year revenue guidance slightly topping analysts’ expectations but a miss of analysts’ organic revenue estimates.
Is W.W. Grainger a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free.
This quarter, analysts are expecting W.W. Grainger’s revenue to grow 4.5% year on year to $4.40 billion, slowing from the 6.7% increase it recorded in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $9.98 per share.
Heading into earnings, analysts covering the company have grown increasingly bearish with revenue estimates seeing 4 downward revisions over the last 30 days (we track 13 analysts). W.W. Grainger has missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates six times over the last two years.
Looking at W.W. Grainger’s peers in the maintenance and repair distributors segment, some have already reported their Q3 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. Fastenal delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 3.5%, meeting analysts’ expectations, and MSC Industrial reported a revenue decline of 8%, in line with consensus estimates. Fastenal traded up 9.6% following the results while MSC Industrial was down 2.6%.
Read our full analysis of Fastenal’s results here and MSC Industrial’s results here.
Investors in the maintenance and repair distributors segment have had steady hands going into earnings, with share prices flat over the last month. W.W. Grainger is up 5.9% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $1,015 (compared to the current share price of $1,101).
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