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What's in the Cards for Quanta Services (PWR) Q1 Earnings?

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Quanta Services, Inc. (PWR - Free Report) is slated to release first-quarter 2018 results before the opening bell on May 3.

The company's earnings surprise history is decent, with two beats and two misses in the trailing four quarters. In the last reported quarter, the company reported earnings of 45 cents per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2.3%.

Let's see how things are shaping up for this announcement.

Factors to Consider 

Quanta Services remains optimistic about the prospects of its end markets in both of its segments namely, Electric Power and Oil & Gas segments, over the next couple of years. Particularly, the company’s communications infrastructure services business seems to be performing brilliantly. Of late, the company is actively pursuing opportunities with various U.S. telecom and cable MSOs. With the larger diameter pipeline market expanding, and a multi-year cycle ahead of it, the company remains optimistic about its communications infrastructure services operations.

Moreover, Quanta Services’ oil and gas segment outlook looks promising primarily owing to the improving mainline and natural gas distribution and integrity markets. Moving ahead, the company continues to expect healthy levels of base load work, including supporting midstream infrastructure, downstream support services and natural gas distribution. Additionally, it anticipates strong performance from pipeline projects driven by a considerable increase in large pipeline revenue contributions amid an active bidding and negotiating environment.

Further, the company’s decentralized and entrepreneurial business model allows it to combat challenges that arise from a bleak macroeconomic scenario. Also, Quanta Services enjoys strong prospects in end markets supported by key growth drivers like an aging grid, shifting generation mix and grid modernization. These factors are expected to prove conducive to the company’s top line going ahead.

Meanwhile, the company remains optimistic about its solid backlog levels, which are likely to grow further. This apart, its recent bolt-on acquisitions are anticipated to boost top-line growth in the quarter under review and beyond.

Earnings Whispers

Our proven model does not conclusively show an earnings beat for Quanta Services in the to-be-reported quarter. This is because a stock needs to have both — a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) — for this to happen. But that is not the case here as you will see below.

Zacks ESP: Quanta Services has an Earnings ESP of 0.00%, as both the Most Accurate estimate and the Zacks Consensus Estimate are pegged at 32 cents. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they’re reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

Zacks Rank: The company carries a Zacks Rank #2, which increases the predictive power of the ESP. However, its ESP of 0.00% makes surprise prediction difficult.

As it is we caution against stocks with a Zacks Ranks #4 or 5 (Sell rated) going into the earnings announcement, especially when the company is seeing negative estimate revisions.

Other Stocks to Consider

Here are some companies that you may want to consider as our model shows that these have the right combination of elements to post an earnings beat this quarter:

Fluor Corporation (FLR - Free Report) has an Earnings ESP of +2.28% and a Zacks Rank #2. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. has an Earnings ESP of +0.85% and a Zacks Rank of 2.

AECOM (ACM - Free Report) has an Earnings ESP of +0.46% and a Zacks Rank #3.

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