(By Rich Bieglmeier)
CalAmp Corp. (
CAMP) is expected to report earnings after the market close on Thursday, June 28, 2012. Management will host the conference call which will follow immediately afterwards.
Wall Street anticipates that CVGI will earn $0.13 for its 1st quarter. iStock expects wireless communications solutions developer to report earnings that will beat the Street's consensus number. The iEstimate is 16 cents – a 3 cent upside surprise.
On June 8th, CAMP gleefully told investors that a solid quarter was in the bag. Due to the company's Datacom segment, CalAmp said to be on the lookout for revenues to be in the range of $43.5 to $44 million, higher than previously issued guidance of $38 to $41 million. Additionally, earnings per share are now expected to be in the range of $0.13 to $0.14, up from $0.07 to $0.11.
In the past three years, CAMP has reported profits above the consensus target, with two misses. The majority of the bullish surprises have been in excess 50%. No doubt the beats and misses, too, have been off the charts.
Unsurprisingly, the stock has moved nearly as aggressively following the tech company's quarterly checkups.
Last year, CalAmp's share price gained 10.7%, lost 11.7%, gained 17.6% and 21.7%, from the most recent backwards. In fact, in 10 of the last 16 quarters, CAMP's prices have moved more than 10% in one direction or the other, with 70% moving in favor of bulls.
From iStock's experience, companies that pre-announce better than forecasted earnings tend to top the guidance and offer strong, forward looking guidance. It is the future outlook that really gets investors revved up.
Studies say earnings surprises and revisions are strong predictors of future stock performance. If iStock is correct, and CAMP beats and guides higher, that means analysts will have to raise their profit calculations, and shareholders could benefit from a phenomenon known as post earnings drift (PED).
Simply put, PED stocks tend to outperform the market in the direction of the earnings surprise. In this case, iStock is on the up side.
CalAmp Corp. (
CAMP) has been on a tear since its preannouncement, jumping from $5.84 to as high as $8.17. Today, the stock is taking some off the top as the market retreats, thanks Ben.
We would like to see CAMP's price pull back to $7.50, maybe to $7 or lower prior to the quarterly earnings announcement. Yes, we are greedy. A 50% retracement in recent gains would give CalAmp the headroom to move higher on next Thursday's news.