Can PriceSmart Deliver Growth This Quarter?

Shares of PriceSmart, Inc. PSMT fell almost 0.6 percent on Thursday morning, ahead of the announcement of the company’s third quarter financial results, scheduled for after the market close.

According to Estimize, the company is expected to deliver 4 to 6 percent year-over-year growth in earnings. The chart below features a history of consensus estimates versus actual earnings.

In the third quarter of 2014, earnings came in at $0.70 per share, and revenue at $615 million. For the current quarter, the Street is projecting earnings of $0.74 per share on sales of $688.02 million, while the crowd is expecting earnings of $0.73 per share on revenue of $687.18 million.

As it can be seen in the chart above, however, PriceSmart has been struggling to meet estimates over the past few quarters.

Additional Commentary

In a recent article published on SeekingAlpha, analysts at L&F Capital Management also previewed PriceSmart’s results. According to the note, they are expecting a beat on both the top and bottom line.

The authors of the note are modeling year-over-year net sales growth of 13 percent for the third quarter. “Slight margin expansion, consistent with historical and specifically Q1 and Q2 data, lead our model to yield EPS of $0.74,” they add, explaining that “fiscal 2014 and early fiscal 2015 new warehouse revenues should boost performance this quarter.”