Exxon Mobil: Earnings And Troubled Waters; Two Graphs Tell What To Expect

Exxon Mobil Corporation XOM is scheduled to report its first quarter financial results on Thursday, before the market opens.

A look at crowdsourced site Estimize shows that both the crowd and experts expect the oil and gas company to report a year-over-year decline of at least 58 percent in earnings – in the first quarter of 2014, earnings came in at $2.10 per share.

Related Link: 1 Exxon Chart To See Before Buying In

Wall Street models consensus EPS of $0.80 on revenue of $42.623 billion.

Main Street projects consensus EPS of $0.87 on revenue of $49.433 billion.

Although oil prices seem to be stabilizing, anticipating results could still be a tricky subject.

Related Link: All The 'Experts' Were Wrong On Oil

The graph below shows a history of Exxon Mobil’s actual earnings compared with estimates. As one can notice, the company has managed to beat expectations over the past four quarters.

It is also possible to check out how sentiment has changed over the quarter.

Wall Street’s estimates fell sharply over January, and then hovered around the $0.80 level. Unlike experts’, the crowd’s projections fell gradually, as the earnings date came closer, from $1.20 to $0.87.

Analyst Ratings

Wall Street research firms do not seem to be fans of Exxon (or oil, in general) at the time. Over the past couple of months JP Morgan issued a Neutral rating, while Argus Research and Evercore Partners downgraded the stock to Hold.

The only one that is bullish on the company is Goldman Sachs, which reinstated coverage of the stock a few days ago, with a Buy rating.