Economic consulting firm CRA International (NASDAQ: CRAI) will be announcing earnings results tomorrow before the bell. Here’s what to look for.
CRA beat analysts’ revenue expectations by 5.8% last quarter, reporting revenues of $176.4 million, up 9.2% year on year. It was a stunning quarter for the company, with a solid beat of analysts’ EPS estimates and full-year revenue guidance beating analysts’ expectations.
Is CRA a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free.
This quarter, analysts are expecting CRA’s revenue to grow 2.8% year on year to $176.6 million, slowing from the 12.4% increase it recorded in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $1.95 per share.
Analysts covering the company have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business to stay the course heading into earnings. CRA has missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates twice over the last two years.
Looking at CRA’s peers in the business process outsourcing & consulting segment, some have already reported their Q1 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. Huron delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 11.2%, beating analysts’ expectations by 0.8%, and FTI Consulting reported a revenue decline of 3.3%, falling short of estimates by 0.9%. FTI Consulting traded down 3.3% following the results.
Read our full analysis of Huron’s results here and FTI Consulting’s results here.
Investors in the business process outsourcing & consulting segment have had fairly steady hands going into earnings, with share prices down 2% on average over the last month. CRA is down 8.3% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $235.50 (compared to the current share price of $162.69).
Today’s young investors won’t have read the timeless lessons in Gorilla Game: Picking Winners In High Technology because it was written more than 20 years ago when Microsoft and Apple were first establishing their supremacy. But if we apply the same principles, then enterprise software stocks leveraging their own generative AI capabilities may well be the Gorillas of the future. So, in that spirit, we are excited to present our Special Free Report on a profitable, fast-growing enterprise software stock that is already riding the automation wave and looking to catch the generative AI next.
