Pinnacle West (PNW) To Post Q4 Earnings: What's In Store?

Pinnacle West Capital Corporation (NYSE:PNW) is scheduled to release fourth-quarter 2019 results on Feb 21, 2020, before the opening bell. The company has trailing four-quarter negative earnings surprise of 0.95%, on average.

Let’s see how things are shaping up prior to this announcement.

Factors at Play

Pinnacle West Capital has operations in the Metro Phoenix area, which continues to show strong economic activities and job growth. Solid job growth as well as increased housing permits and single-family permits is likely to have boosted the company’s services in the fourth quarter.

The results of fourth quarter are likely to have impacted by the unfavorable weather condition. October sales were also below expectations due to milder-than-normal weather that are likely to have had a negative impact on fourth-quarter performance. Moreover, planned outage of Palo Verde unit 3 is likely to have lowered production in the fourth quarter.

Q4 Expectation

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fourth-quarter earnings is pegged at 47 cents per share, which indicates a surge of 104.35% on a year-over-year basis.

What Our Quantitative Model Predicts

Our proven model doesn’t conclusively predict an earnings beat for Pinnacle West this time around. The combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) increases the chances of an earnings beat. That is not the case here. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Earnings ESP: The company’s Earnings ESP is +5.38%. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they’re reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

Zacks Rank: Currently, Pinnacle West carries a Zacks Rank #4.

Stocks to Consider

Investors can consider the following players from the same industry that have the right combination of elements to post an earnings beat in the to-be-reported quarter.

Southern Company (NYSE:SO) is set to release fourth-quarter 2019 numbers on Feb 20. It has an Earnings ESP of +0.78% and carries a Zacks Rank #3.

CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) is scheduled to release fourth-quarter 2019 results on Feb 27. It has an Earnings ESP of +1.09% and a Zacks Rank #3.

The AES Corporation (NYSE:AES) is set to release fourth-quarter 2019 numbers on Feb 28. It has an Earnings ESP of +0.76% and carries a Zacks Rank #3.

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