Posted Jun 25th 2009 3:50PM by Steven Mallas
Filed under: Earnings reports, Campbell Soup (CPB), Kellogg Co (K), ConAgra Foods (CAG), Kraft Foods'A' (KFT)

Food processor
ConAgra (NYSE:
CAG), whose products share space at the supermarket with
Kraft (NYSE:
KFT),
Kellogg (NYSE:
K), and
Campbell Soup (NYSE:
CPB), is down in Thursday's afternoon trading by over 6% as I write this. The company released earnings for the fourth quarter earlier this morning. Sales increased 8% according to the
press release. Adjusted earnings from continuing operations came in at 41 cents per diluted share. This result benefited from an extra week.
The per-share profit compared very favorably to the 18 cents earned in last year's similar quarter. However, in terms of analyst expectations, the performance was relatively unimpressive. Earnings.com indicates that 41 cents is what the market was looking for.
Continue reading ConAgra only meets expectations, but is stock cheap?
Posted May 27th 2009 3:00PM by Steven Mallas
Filed under: Earnings reports, Forecasts, Campbell Soup (CPB), Kellogg Co (K), Kraft Foods'A' (KFT)
Heinz (NYSE: HNZ) is set to report Q4 data before the opening bell on Thursday, May 28. How will the company do? And by that I mean, will it beat the earnings expectation?
In general, that's what the market looks for. Sometimes the market cares more about beating the analyst game than it does about profit growth. Might sound strange, but that's what you see from time to time. Of course, even when a company beats, it may not make much of a difference when it comes to price action (I'll get to that in the last paragraph).
I think Heinz will indeed beat on the bottom line. I'm going by recent history here. According to Earnings.com, Heinz is expected to report 54 cents per share tomorrow. The company went beyond the call in the first three quarters of its fiscal year. Why miss on the last quarter of the year? I think the trend is in on this one.
Continue reading Earnings preview: Will Heinz surprise the market?
Posted May 23rd 2009 4:10PM by Steven Mallas
Filed under: Earnings reports, Campbell Soup (CPB), Kellogg Co (K), General Mills (GIS), Kraft Foods'A' (KFT)
Campbell Soup (NYSE: CPB) served up a tasty broth of estimate-beating soup this past Friday. According to Trey Thoelcke's earnings preview, the market was looking for $0.42 per share and $1.8 billion in net sales. Well, according to Jon Ogg's coverage, Campbell delivered $0.48 per share and roughly $1.7 billion in net sales. So, revenues came in somewhat soft, but the bottom line was a success as far as Wall Street was concerned.
One thing Campbell investors want to look at is the gross margin. This metric tells you how the company is doing in terms of cost control. The press release stated that gross margin went up to an adjusted 40.3%. Last year at this time, management reported a gross margin of 38.6%. Pricing helped out, as well as efficiency initiatives. It's cool to see that Campbell can leverage price actions to propel its gross margin. It shows the power of its brand equity.
Continue reading Campbell Soup goes beyond expectations in Q3 -- buy/sell?
Posted May 23rd 2009 9:40AM by Trey Thoelcke
Filed under: Earnings reports, Home Depot (HD), Target Corp. (TGT), Campbell Soup (CPB), Safeway Inc (SWY), Sears Holdings (SHLD), Lowe's Cos (LOW), Deere and Co (DE)
Here are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:
Continue reading Earnings highlights: Home Depot, Target, Sears, Campbell, Deere and more
Posted May 22nd 2009 4:10PM by Jon Ogg
Filed under: General Motors (GM), Campbell Soup (CPB), Sears Holdings (SHLD), Gap Inc (GPS), Xerox Corp (XRX), Suntech Power Hldgs ADS (STP)

Today felt like one of those slow long pre-holiday trading days where many gainers and losers were seen with low volume. There was no real economic data to absorb and no real earnings reports to pick apart.
That let us only react to a small recovery from the fears that the US could ultimately have the same credit rating fears that were brought up about England yesterday. Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:
Dow 8,278.04 -14.09 (-0.17%)
S&P 500 887.33 -1.00 (-0.11%)
Nasdaq 1,693.91 -1.34 (-0.08%)
Top Analyst Upgrades & DowngradesContinue reading Closing Bell: Pre-holiday weekend blahs (CPB, GPS, GM, PLA, SHLD, STP, XRX)
Posted May 21st 2009 5:20PM by Trey Thoelcke
Filed under: Earnings reports, Forecasts, Campbell Soup (CPB)
Campbell Soup Co. (NYSE: CPB) is scheduled to discuss its fiscal third-quarter results tomorrow, May 22, in a conference call at 10:00 AM ET. You can catch the live webcast of the call on the company's website, or dial in at 1-866-219-5631.
For the quarter in which the world's largest soup maker expanded its sodium free offerings, declared a quarterly dividend, and announced an acquisition, analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect the Camden, N.J.-based food and beverage maker to report earnings of $0.42 per share, down a penny a share from the same period of the previous year. Revenue for the quarter is expected to have fallen 4.5% to $1.8 billion. Campbell's earnings have just beat estimates in the past three quarters.
Continue reading Earnings preview: Campbell's holding its own in Q3?
Posted May 21st 2009 11:10AM by Laurie Pasternack
Filed under: Analyst reports, Analyst upgrades and downgrades, Target Corp. (TGT), Campbell Soup (CPB), CIGNA Corp (CI), Safeway Inc (SWY), Analyst initiations, Gilead Sciences (GILD), Freep't McMoRan Copper (FCX), Suntech Power Hldgs ADS (STP)
Analyst upgrades:
- UBS upgraded Target (NYSE: TGT) to Buy from Neutral and raised its price target to $52 from $45 citing reduced inventories, some credit stability, and an improved back-to-school period.
- Credit Suisse said concerns regarding Safeway's (NYSE: SWY) price position are overblown and that earnings risk is limited. The firm upgraded shares to Outperform from Neutral and raised the target price to $25 from $22.
- Oppenheimer upgraded Canadian Solar (NASDAQ: CSIQ) to Outperform from Perform as it believes the story is underappreciated following the recent sector rally. The firm has a $14 price target on the stock.
- CME Group (NASDAQ: CME) was upgraded to buy from Neutral at Goldman.
- Freeport McMoRan (NYSE: FCX) was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan.
- Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at FTN Equity.
Continue reading Analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations: TGT, SWY, CSIQ, HOTT, MPEL, RIO, CPB, CVD and HGG
Posted Mar 16th 2009 5:10PM by Steven Mallas
Filed under: Earnings reports, Forecasts, Wal-Mart (WMT), Campbell Soup (CPB), Kellogg Co (K), General Mills (GIS), Kraft Foods'A' (KFT)
General Mills (NYSE: GIS), a cereal manufacturer whose colleagues at the supermarket include Kellogg (NYSE: K), Kraft (NYSE: KFT), and Campbell Soup (NYSE: CPB), is all set to report earnings on Wednesday, March 18. This will be for the third quarter, and according to the following source, analysts are expecting $0.88 per share. It won't be an impressive performance if General Mills merely meets expectations. In the previous year's Q3, the company did $0.87 per share. Obviously, $0.88 wouldn't be much in terms of growth.
Continue reading Earnings preview: Will General Mills top estimates?
Posted Feb 28th 2009 4:40PM by Trey Thoelcke
Filed under: Earnings reports, Home Depot (HD), Target Corp. (TGT), Campbell Soup (CPB), Safeway Inc (SWY), Sears Holdings (SHLD), Kohl's Corp (KSS), Nordstrom, Inc (JWN), Garmin Ltd (GRMN), Marvel Entertainment (MVL)
Here are some highlights from this past week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:
Continue reading Earnings highlights: Campbell, Sears, Home Depot, Nordstrom, Marvel and more
Posted Feb 24th 2009 8:15AM by Steven Mallas
Filed under: Earnings reports, Wal-Mart (WMT), Campbell Soup (CPB), General Mills (GIS), Kraft Foods'A' (KFT)
Campbell Soup (NYSE: CPB) reported earnings for the second quarter, and while they weren't that great in terms of growth, they did beat Wall Street expectations. The bottom line came in at an adjusted 65 cents per share from continuing operations. Analysts were expecting 64 cents per share. I know, a one-penny beat isn't necessarily something to crow about, especially when Campbell grew income from continuing operations by only a single penny on a year-over-year basis. In this market, though, this is the stuff of dreams.
In fact, I bet Campbell's shares would have been higher on the news if it wasn't for the fact that the Dow is getting closer and closer to the 7,000 mark (and, please don't worry, we'll see a Dow reading that begins with a 6 before you can scream sell!).
Continue reading Campbell Soup beats in Q2, but it may not be that defensive in this market
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