Zillow Surges Ahead Of Earnings; Estimates Still Not Encouraging Though

Shares of Zillow Group Inc Z are up more than 6 percent on Monday, in anticipation of the announcement of the company’s first quarter financial results after the market closes on Tuesday.

According to Estimize, experts and the crowd both anticipate a marked decline in earnings, to negative figures. Wall Street analysts are modeling a consensus net loss of ($0.10) per share on revenue of $141.64 million. Main Street is slightly less bearish, and projects a net loss of ($0.06) per share on revenue of $145.36 million.

As it can be seen in the chart above, these numbers compare to consensus-beating earnings of $0.02 per share (on revenue of $66.2 million) reported in the first quarter of 2014, and in-line earnings of $0.26 per share (on revenue of $92.33 million) posted in the last quarter.

It shout be noted from the graph overhead that Zillow has managed to either meet or beat Wall Street’s expectations for 6 consecutive quarters now.

The second graph illustrates the evolution of consensus estimates over time.

As it can be appreciated, both the Street’s and the crowd’s expectations have been falling since the beginning of the year, having converged several times, before arriving at their current levels, with the Street being the most bearish.

Monday’s Upgrade

In a report rolled out Monday, analysts at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey upgraded shares of Zillow from Neutral to Buy, while boosting the price target from $110 to $130.

Related Link: SunTrust's Peck Upgrades Zillow To Buy

According to a recent Benzinga article, “Zillow is poised for robust long-term growth following the completion of its merger with Trulia Inc TRLA and its dominant online and mobile position.”