AutoZone (NYSE: AZO) is scheduled to report earnings before the market opens on Tuesday, December 4, 2007 with analysts estimating it will report $1.91 per share. Last time AZO analysts estimated that AutoZone would report $3.25 and just missed analyst's expectations with earnings of $3.23.

Beating estimates is not a given with AutoZone as it has missed five of the last 12 times is reported. But just because it misses does not mean those stock will go down; most of those misses were small and four of the last five times the stock missed it actually went up after earnings. In fact, the stock has rose 9 of the last 12 times it reported earnings.

While the stock has moved up as much as 8.3% (Q1 '06) on earnings or fallen as much as 4.5% (Q2 '07) the average move is actually closer to 3.8% up or down.

As you can see from the chart, AutoZone's earnings are also very cyclical,so they are expected to be lower than the last quarter. Looking at the three-year trend, AutoZone has been slowly growing its earnings which is a good thing for the long term prospects of the stock.

Kevin Kersten is an Options Analyst with InvestorsObserver.com. Disclosure note: Mr. Kersten owns and or controls a diversified portfolio of long and short positions that may include holdings in companies he writes about.