Buy the Spike in Intuit (INTU) Stock After Earnings?

Spiking +8% today, Intuit INTU stock made headlines after comfortably exceeding expectations for its fiscal third quarter after-market hours on Thursday.

Sitting on gains of +15% year to date, Intuit stock has outperformed the broader market and many of its notable Zacks Computer-Software peers, including Microsoft MSFT and Salesforce CRM.

Not too far from its 52-week high of $734 a share, investors are surely wondering if there is more upside in store for the financial software giant’s stock, with generative AI starting to enhance Intuit’s accounting and tax preparation services.

Intuit’s Q3 Results

Thanks to its AI-driven solutions, Intuit’s Q3 sales of $7.75 billion eclipsed estimates of $7.54 billion and spiked from $6.73 billion a year ago. CEO Sasan Goodarzi stated Intuit is becoming a one-stop shop for AI agents and AI-enabled human experts. Notably, Intuit Assist offers a generative AI-powered financial assistant that helps users with tax filing, business insights, and financial decision-making. 

On the bottom line, Intuit's Q3 EPS of $11.65 rose 18% from $9.88 in the comparative quarter and topped expectations of $10.89 per share by nearly 7%. More intriguing, Intuit has now surpassed the Zacks EPS Consensus for 13 consecutive quarters with an average earnings surprise of 12.15% in its last four quarterly reports.

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Intuit's Revenue Guidance

Serving as a further catalyst to Friday’s rally was that Intuit raised its full-year revenue guidance and now expects fiscal 2025 sales to be between $18.72 billion-18.76 billion, up from previous estimates of $18.16 billion-$18.35 billion. This came in above Zacks' estimates of $18.28 billion or 12% growth (Current Year below). Zacks' projections currently call for Intuit’s total sales to increase another 12% in FY26 to $20.48 billion.

Monitoring Intuit’s P/E Valuation

Following its post-earnings rally, Intuit stock is trading at a 34.5X forward earnings multiple, which is on par with Microsoft but a premium to its industry average of 27.3X, with Salesforce at 25.5X. However, INTU does trade well below its decade-long high of 87.2X forward earnings and offers a 23% discount to its median of 44.9X during this period.  

Bottom Line

For now, Intuit stock lands a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) following its favorable Q3 report. That said, it wouldn’t be surprising if a buy rating is on the way as earnings estimate revisions could trend higher in the coming weeks, considering Intuit’s elevated revenue guidance.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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