Can Dycom (DY) Surprise This Earnings Season? - Analyst Blog

Dycom Industries Inc. DY is set to report its third-quarter fiscal 2014 results on May 20. The company had delivered positive earnings surprises in 2 of the last 4 quarters with an average beat of 7.6%. Let's consider some important issues that may affect the upcoming results.

Growth Factors in the Past Quarter

Dycom has a strong portfolio of customers, primarily in the telecom and wireless equipment industry. The company is also benefiting from the growing demand for high-speed mobile Internet and 4G/LTE services, along with increasing investments in the fiber industry.

However, the company's business can be significantly impacted by natural disasters and unfavorable weather conditions as the large portion of its work is conducted outdoors.

This North America based specialty contracting firm had reported weak second-quarter 2014 results. The results were impacted by lower sales and profit in the wake of a harsher winter in the latter half of the second quarter of 2014. Severe snowfall and exceptionally cold temperatures resulted in lower number of available workdays, which had an unfavorable impact on productivity and margins as well.

Moreover, it had cited that the bad weather was likely to affect its third-quarter results as well. Thus, the company had trimmed the outlook for the same.

Earnings Whispers?

Our proven model does not conclusively show that Dycom is likely to beat estimates this quarter. This is because a stock needs to have both positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1, 2 or 3 for this to happen. This is not the case here as you will see below:

Zacks ESP: The Earnings ESP for Dycom is 0.00%. This is because both the Most Accurate estimate and the Zacks Consensus Estimate stand at 22 cents per share.

Zacks Rank: Dycom's Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) lowers the predictive power of ESP because the Zacks Rank #3 when combined with a 0.00% ESP makes surprise prediction difficult.

Other Stocks to Consider

Here are some other companies you may want to consider as our model shows they have the right combination of elements to post an earnings beat this quarter:

NRG Yield, Inc. NYLD with Earnings ESP of +40.00% and a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

Embraer SA ERJ with Earnings ESP of +1.79% and a Zacks Rank #2.

Intuit Inc. INTU, Earnings ESP of +1.18% and a Zacks Rank #2.