Earnings preview: Can Coca-Cola (KO) rally through resistance?

Posted Apr 21st 2009 7:00AM by Beth Gaston Moon
Filed under: Earnings Reports, Coca-Cola (KO), PepsiCo (PEP)

Monday morning, PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP) reported its quarterly earnings and proceeded to fall 4.35%. Granted, the market wasn't too hot either, and the earnings news came with a buyout offer for two of its bottling companies. Long-time rival Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) is stepping up to the earnings plate this morning and is hoping to meet a dissimilar fate.

Currently, the consensus view among analysts calls for per-share results of 65 cents, representing a two-cent decline from year-ago results. Revenue is expected to have inched slightly higher to $7.41 billion.

Heading into this report, Coca-Cola shares have lost a bit of their effervescence, pushing up against the 45 level, which has proven to be a technical challenge since last fall. Additionally, in the May series, the 45 and 47.50 calls have been popular among options traders; together, this pair of strikes is home to more than 47,000 out-of-the-money contracts.

KO lost 1.5% in regular trading yesterday, but showed modest gains in after-hours activity. Will this morning's earnings be able to catapult the shares through the pesky 45 mark and if so, how long can it hold above this threshold?

Beth Gaston Moon works for WeSeed.com, "The stock market for the rest of us." The above comments are not intended as trading or investment advice.

Tags: coca-cola, earnings, earnings preview, EarningsPreview, featured, inthenews, ko

Print this

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

4-21-2009 @ 7:32AM

jj923 said...

vogmall.com is a professional on-line shop. We supply many kinds of productions like shoes , handbags and so on . The productions under the brand NIKE , JORDON ,GUCCI, UGG are all in sold. 40%--20%discount is given. Welcome to our website http://www.vogmall.com