Waste Management (WM) Missed Q4 Earnings and Revenue Estimates – Stock Market News

Waste Management (WM) exited with quarterly earnings of $1.30 per share, missing Zacks’ consensus estimate of $1.39 per share. That compares to earnings of $1.26 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items.

This quarterly report represents a profit surprise of -6.47%. A quarter ago, this waste and recycling hauler was expected to post a profit of $1.50 per share when it actually produced a profit of $1.56, a surprise of 4 %.

In the past four quarters, the company has exceeded consensus EPS estimates three times.

Waste Management, which is owned by waste disposal services industry Zacks, posted revenue of $4.94 billion for the quarter ended December 2022, missing Zacks’ consensus estimate by 0.72%. That compares to revenues of $4.68 billion a year ago. The company has exceeded consensus revenue estimates three times in the past four quarters.

The sustainability of the immediate stock price movement based on recently released numbers and future earnings forecasts will primarily depend on management’s comments on the earnings call.

Waste Management shares have lost about 2.4% year-to-date versus a 4.6% gain for the S&P 500.

What is the next step for waste management?

While Waste Management has underperformed the market so far this year, the question on investors’ minds is: what’s next for the stock?

There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable metric that can help investors answer it is the company’s earnings outlook. This includes not only the current consensus earnings expectations for the upcoming quarter(s), but also how those expectations have changed recently.

Empirical research shows a strong correlation between short-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track these revisions on their own or rely on a proven scoring tool like Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions.

Before that Press release, the trend of estimate revisions for Waste Management: mixed. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions may change following the release of the company’s earnings report, the current situation translates into a No. 3 (hold) Zacks ranking for the stock. Thus, the shares should move in line with the market in the near future. You can see the full list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

It will be interesting to see how the estimates for the next few quarters and the current fiscal year change in the days ahead. The current consensus EPS estimate is $1.39 on $4.88 billion in revenue for the upcoming quarter and $6.18 on $20.84 billion in revenue for the current fiscal year.

Investors should be aware that the outlook for the sector can also have a significant impact on stock performance. In terms of Zacks industry rankings, waste disposal services are currently in 31% of the more than 250 Zacks industries. Our research shows that the top 50% of industries ranked by Zacks outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1.

Another stock in the same sector, Waste Connections (WCN), has not yet released its results for the quarter ended December 2022. The results are expected to be released on February 15.

This solid waste management service provider is expected to post quarterly earnings of $0.88 per share in its next report, representing a year-over-year change of +6%. The consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has been revised down 0.9% in the last 30 days from the current level.

Waste Connections revenue is expected to be $1.85 billion, up 13.8% from the prior year quarter.

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