Steel wire manufacturer Insteel (NYSE:IIIN) will be reporting earnings this Thursday morning. Here’s what to look for.
Insteel missed analysts’ revenue expectations by 1.9% last quarter, reporting revenues of $177.4 million, up 32.1% year on year. It was a disappointing quarter for the company, with a significant miss of analysts’ EBITDA estimates and a significant miss of analysts’ EPS estimates.
Is Insteel a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free for active Edge members.
This quarter, analysts are expecting Insteel’s revenue to grow 24.9% year on year to $162 million, improving from the 6.6% increase it recorded in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $0.33 per share.
Analysts covering the company have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business to stay the course heading into earnings. Insteel has missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates five times over the last two years.
Looking at Insteel’s peers in the building products segment, some have already reported their Q4 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. AZZ delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 5.5%, beating analysts’ expectations by 1.8%, and Apogee reported revenues up 2.1%, falling short of estimates by 1.9%. AZZ traded up 6.6% following the results while Apogee was down 9.5%.
Read our full analysis of AZZ’s results here and Apogee’s results here.
There has been positive sentiment among investors in the building products segment, with share prices up 6.9% on average over the last month. Insteel is up 2.3% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $39 (compared to the current share price of $33.55).
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