What To Expect From Huntington Ingalls's (HII) Q4 Earnings

Aerospace and defense company Huntington Ingalls (NYSE:HII) will be reporting earnings this Thursday before the bell. Here’s what to expect.

Huntington Ingalls beat analysts’ revenue expectations by 8.1% last quarter, reporting revenues of $3.19 billion, up 16.1% year on year. It was a strong quarter for the company, with an impressive beat of analysts’ revenue estimates and a solid beat of analysts’ EBITDA estimates.

Is Huntington Ingalls a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free for active Edge members.

This quarter, analysts are expecting Huntington Ingalls’s revenue to grow 2.6% year on year to $3.08 billion, a reversal from the 5.4% decrease it recorded in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $3.85 per share.

Analysts covering the company have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business to stay the course heading into earnings. Huntington Ingalls has missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates four times over the last two years.

Looking at Huntington Ingalls’s peers in the defense contractors segment, some have already reported their Q4 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. Mercury Systems delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 4.4%, beating analysts’ expectations by 10.4%, and RTX reported revenues up 12.1%, topping estimates by 7%. RTX traded up 2.7% following the results.

Read our full analysis of Mercury Systems’s results here and RTX’s results here.

There has been positive sentiment among investors in the defense contractors segment, with share prices up 8.5% on average over the last month. Huntington Ingalls is up 18.1% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $380.60 (compared to the current share price of $428.25).

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