Pfizer And Apple In Focus

For the Zacks Investment Research analytical team — the Strategists and Editors who parse through huge amounts of data to give actionable information on whether a particular stock is worth buying or it isn’t — trudging through earnings season is both easy pickings and a slog to find the jewels in the silt. With this in mind, instead of another run-down of the high number of companies reporting today, I’d like to focus on one company having reported before the bell and one coming after the close: Pfizer (PFE – Free Report)  and Apple (AAPL – Free Report) .

Pfizer is one of the world’s very largest drug companies, with a market capitalization of more than $200 billion and almost 100,000 employees, and it has reported Q1 earnings and revenues ahead of the opening bell this Tuesday. The company topped quarterly earnings estimates in the Zacks consensus by 2 cents to 69 cents for the quarter, which is also 2 cents better (+3%) than the year-ago quarter.

Revenues, however, missed the consensus mark of $13.04 billion when it reached “just” $12.78 billion for its Q1. Shares are trading down slightly as of this report hitting the tape.

This is the first quarter in the last three where Pfizer has actually beaten projections. Its year-ago big beat of more than 20% makes the trailing 4-quarter surprise a positive 4.36%, although breast cancer drug Ibrance and arthritis treatment Xeljanz both missed expectations, which is what helped lead quarterly sales south of the Zacks consensus. Year to date, Pfizer shares are +4%, but only +3.3% from this time a year ago.

Apple, Inc., not only the biggest tech firm but the world’s largest company by market cap, is expected to bring in $2.02 per share on $52.61 billion in quarterly sales after today’s closing bell. This is more than 6% higher than the $1.90 per share reported in fiscal Q2 of 2016, a year ago. That, by the way, is also the last time Apple missed earnings estimates, and if one recalls the Steve Jobs second-coming era at Apple, earnings misses were never part of the story.