Deere Shares Down +10% Since June Highs; Earnings On The Docket Friday Morning

Ahead of Friday's earnings release, investor sentiment toward Deere & Company DE remains weak, as there is near unanimity among analysts for the third quarter to be lackluster.

Across The Street

The Street consensus calls for an EPS of $0.94, with some estimates coming above $1, while others are quite below.

For instance, BMO Capital is looking for an EPS of $0.85, near the low end of the Street compared to the average estimate of $0.94. This kind of weak sentiment comes despite the company's EPS having topped estimates between 5.4 percent and 44.0 percent over the last four quarters.

Related Link: Earnings: Farming And Commodity Slump Weighing On Deere & Company?

Jefferies remains Neutral ahead of the earnings results for the third quarter, commenting, "With the 30-day RSI across our coverage averaging just shy of 50, investors on both sides of the Street seem to be uncertain what to do with numerous sell-side downgrades across the industrial space even as investors continue to drive share prices higher."

Another indication of weak-to-negative investor sentiment is the percentage of short interest in the issue, currently above 10 percent.

In the last one-month period, the following brokerages have given their rating.

• Jefferies maintains its Hold rating and price target of $70.
• BMO Capital has an Outperform rating and price objective of $96.
• UBS downgraded the stock from Buy to Neutral with $80 as its price tag.
• Piper Jaffray also downgraded the shares of the company from Neutral to Underweight.

At time of writing, shares of Deere & Company were down 0.77 percent at $76.83.

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