What 2 Top Wall St. Analysts Are Watching At Bed Bath & Beyond Before Earnings

Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. BBBY will report Q4 earnings Wednesday. The Wall Street consensus was for EPS of $1.81 on revenues of $3.37 billion.

Deutsche Bank and analyst Mike Baker felt the company would report EPS of $1.79 with comps of 4.1 percent.

"Expectations are relatively high given the strong 4Q guidance and we believe 1Q likely decelerated. We also think full year consensus may be a penny or two high," according to Baker.

Baker modeled Q1 2015 comps at 2.3 percent versus the consensus of 2.9 percent and though that "guidance should be in the low single digit range." The firm's Q1 EPS estimate was $0.99 versus the consensus of $1.01.

Deutsche Bank maintained a Hold rating on the stock and $68 price target.

At UBS, analyst Michael Lasser expected a 4 percent comp increase for Q4 with EPS at $1.79.

Lasser noted that a key to guidance will be the relationship between how the company "can cushion its margin degradation with share repos."

The analyst forecasted that Bed Bath & Beyond will buy back another $1 billion of its shares in 2015 which "will contribute 550 bps to its EPS growth for FY'15. All else being equal, this would compensate for 60 bps of margin degradation, meaning that its profit rate could decline at this pace & its EPS will still be flat."

As a measure of competitiveness, Lasser observed that the gap in prices between Bed Bath & Beyond and Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN had narrowed in March with BBBY's basket of 124 products priced at a 4.1 percent premium, down from a 6.2 percent premium to Amazon in December 2014.

UBS maintained a Neutral rating on the stock with a $75 price target.

Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. recently traded at $77.53, up 0.95 percent.