GLW vs. JNPR: Which Stock is Poised for Better Q3 Earnings?

The third-quarter reporting cycle will be seeing releases from 722 companies, including 180 S&P 500 members, this week (Oct 23-27).

Corning Inc GLW and Juniper Networks Inc JNPR are set to report third-quarter 2017 results on Oct 24.

Let’s find out what these companies have to offer investors in this quarter.

Corning is well known for the Gorilla Glass that has gained significant traction from increasing usage in smartphones.

We expect strong demand for fiber products to primarily drive growth, which will boost Optical Communications revenues.

Additionally, Gorilla Glass 5 is also anticipated to contribute significantly. We believe that a likely increase in dollar content from Apple’s AAPL newly launched iPhones will benefit Corning’s top-line growth in the quarter.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Optical Communications and Specialty Materials (Gorilla Glass is reported under this segment) revenues are currently pegged at $878 million and $340 million, respectively.

However, weakness in the Display Technologies segment is a headwind. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the segment is currently pegged at $752 million.

Shares of Corning have returned 23.9% year to date, significantly outperforming the industry’s 21% rally.

On the other hand, Juniper is expected to disappoint investors due to sluggish sales in its cloud computing segment. The weakness is likely to hurt switching business. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenues for the Switching segment is currently pegged at $276 million.

Moreover, Juniper is facing significant pricing pressure amid intense competition in the network equipment market from the likes of Arista Networks Inc, Cisco Systems Inc and others including white-box vendors. This has hurt the company’s competitive position in the router market. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenues for the Routing segment is currently pegged at $589 million.

Additionally, Juniper’s expansion into low-margin Asia-Pacific market adversely impacted customer mix. Further, growing proportion of low-margin switch business in the product mix as compared with high-margin router business is a headwind for gross margin expansion. Additionally, higher DRAM memory prices are expected to hurt gross margin in the quarter.

Juniper’s shares have lost 7.9% of its value year to date compared with the 3.1% decline of its industry.

Unfavorable Rank, Negative ESP

We believe both Corning and Juniper are unlikely to deliver a positive earnings surprise in the third quarter due to an unfavorable combination of Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) and negative Earnings ESP. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they’re reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

We don’t recommend Sell-rated stocks (Zacks Rank #4 or 5) going into the earnings announcement, especially when the company is witnessing negative estimate revisions.

A Stock to Consider

Here is a stock you may consider as our proven model shows that it has the right combination of elements to post an earnings beat this quarter:

Texas Instruments Inc. TXN has an Earnings ESP of +0.07% and has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Texas Instruments is also scheduled to report on Oct 24.

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Juniper Networks, Inc. (JNPR) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
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Corning Incorporated (GLW) : Free Stock Analysis Report
 
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