Intuit First Quarter Earnings Preview

When Intuit (Nasdaq:INTU) announces its first quarter earnings on Thursday, November 15, 2012, it is expected to report a narrower loss than a year ago. Analysts are anticipating a loss of 17 cents per share, up from a loss of 18 cents per share last year.



Investors should care about a company's quarterly earnings because it shows the state of the business over the past 90 days and provides guidance for the following 90 days. SEE: 12 Things You Need To Know About Financial Statements

What to Expect: This is a drop from the consensus estimate three months ago of a loss of 16 cents. For the fiscal year, analysts are projecting earnings of $2.95 per share.

Intuit is expected to report revenue of $639.2 million for the quarter, beating last year's figure of $594 million by 7.6%. Intuit is expected to report revenue of $4.59 billion for the fiscal year.



Company Performance: Revenue has increased 8.2% year-over-year on average over the past four quarters. The most significant increase took place in the second quarter of the last fiscal year, when it rose 16.1% from the year-earlier quarter.

P/E ratio for INTU is 23.1. Perhaps one of the most widely-used stock analysis tools is the price-to-earnings ratio, or P/E. A high P/E ratio indicates a stock that is expensive, while a low P/E ratio indicates a stock that is cheap. SEE: Understanding The P/E Ratio



Over the past quarter, the stock price has risen to $59.96 from $58.02 on August 14, 2012. Intuit's best recent streak was when its price gained $3.25 per share between September 25, 2012 and October 5, 2012.





The Competition: Intuit provides business and financial management solutions for businesses, consumers, accounting professionals and financial institutions. Analysts are optimistic about Intuit, with 10 of 16 assigning it a buy rating. Buy ratings have increased slightly over the last three months.

The company's closest competitor in the software and programming industry is Microsoft (MSFT). Analysts are less optimistic about Intuit than about Microsoft. Nineteen out of 29 analysts rate the latter a buy.