Wall Street’s Week Ahead: Cisco Systems, Salesforce.com, Wal-Mart Stores And Applied Materials

Analysts are anticipating earning reports from many big-name stocks this week, namely Cisco Systems, Inc.(NASDAQ:CSCO), salesforce.com, inc. (NYSE:CRM) Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.(NYSE:WMT) and Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT). Here is what to watch as each company posts earnings this week:

Cisco Systems, Inc.

Cisco Systems, Inc. is expected to post Q3:2016 earnings Tuesday, May 18, after market close. Analysts expect the multinational technology company to post EPS of $0.55, and revenue of $11.97 billion. In the same quarter of the previous year, Cisco posted revenue of $12.1 billion which was a 5% increase y/y, and EPS of $0.47.

Though Cisco shares dropped over 3% on weakness in enterprise firms, analysts remain bullish on the premise that the company will be able to offset slowdown by growth in security software, specifically, its SourceFire products.

Additionally, investors will be paying attention to CSCO’s Meraki WiFi, which is significantly improving company shares. Lately, Meraki WiFi has been selling more software products and generating steady revenue for the company. These factors allow Cisco to be shielded from macro economic slowdown and declining enterprise spending on hardware.

Contributing to bullish outlooks, Drexel Hamilton analyst Brian White reiterated a Buy rating on CSCO on May 13, 2016 with a price target of $34.00. White explained his optimistic expectations are due to Cisco’s above-par product and company implementation, noting, “We expect Cisco’s strong execution and product cycle to provide a buffer in a soft spending environment (especially in the enterprise market).” White is ranked #261 out of 3,907 analysts. He has a success rate of 48% with an average return of 6.2%.

According to TipRanks, the average analyst consensus for the company is Moderate Buy, with 71% of analysts bullish, 24% of analysts neutral, and 6% of analysts bearish on Cisco. The average price target for the stock is $29.69 with an upside of 11.91%.

salesforce.com, inc.

Salesforce.com, inc. is expected to report Q1:17 earnings on May, 5, 2016 after market close. Analysts expect the cloud computing company to post EPS of $0.23, and revenue of $1.89 billion. These analyst consensuses are quite ambitious relative to the same quarter of last year, when the company posted a loss per share of ($0.04). Revenue for the same quarter of last year was $1.81 billion showing a 25% increase y/y.