The club’s earnings season will reach a fever pitch on Thursday, when nine — yes, nine — companies in the Jim Cramer Charitable Trust will report quarterly results. A jam-packed earnings day saw the likes of industrial conglomerate Honeywell International (HON) and tech giants Apple (AAPL) and Alphabet (GOOGL). Stocks had a strong year, led by some of the worst-performing sectors of the past year such as telecom services. But investors are looking to corporate earnings for clues to the health of the US economy, at a time when fears of a possible recession loom on Wall Street. So far, the earnings season has been mixed — we’ve seen some strong results from Club holdings Morgan Stanley (MS) and Halliburton (HAL). Procter & Gamble (PG) reported lower earnings. Microsoft (MSFT) slightly beat Wall Street expectations, but issued disappointing forward guidance. Here’s our breakdown of Thursday’s busy schedule. Refinitiv has compiled analyst estimates for earnings per share (EPS) and revenue. Before the Bell: Estee Lauder, Eli Lilly and Honeywell EL 1Y Mountain Estee Lauder Stock Performance 12 Months. Projected revenue: $4.58 billion Projected earnings per share: $1.30 Conference call at 9:30 a.m. ET Estee Lauder (EL) is one of the club’s favorite ways to reopen China’s economy after three years of lockdowns and Covid-19 restrictions. The beauty company is set to report second-quarter 2023 financial results for the three months ended Dec. 31, which means a good portion of that quarter took place before the full Covid relaxation occurred in Beijing. That’s why we’re ready to skip the quarter and focus more on what management has to say about trends in China, which accounts for more than a third of Estee Lauder’s total sales. We reacquired a position at the cosmetics giant in late September. LLY 1Y Mountain Eli Lilly’s 12-Month Stock Performance. Projected revenue: $7.33 billion Projected earnings per share: $1.81 on conference call at 10am ET Shares of Eli Lilly (LLY) have struggled so far in 2023, in part because the sector has rotated away from healthcare. However, since our belief in the pharmaceutical giant is rooted in its long-term growth potential, we generally view the stock’s recent weakness as a buying opportunity. The main lines to watch when Eli Lilly reports fourth-quarter results Thursday are sales of Mounjaro, the company’s new type 2 diabetes drug, and Trulicity, its older type 2 diabetes drug. So far, sales of Trulicity have held up well, despite the launch of Mounjaro, but we’ll be looking forward to seeing if signs of sales cannibalization emerge. In addition, we’ll see if management has any updates on the schedule regarding Mounjaro’s potential bariatric approval, which will significantly expand its market reach. However, since Eli Lilly has already provided its financial projections for 2023, we don’t expect much variance there. HON 1Y Mountain Honeywell’s 12-Month Stock Performance. Projected Revenue: $9.26 billion Projected EPS: $2.51 Conference Call at 8:30 AM ET While investors generally shy away from industrial stocks when worried about the economy, Honeywell (HON) has exposure to strong end markets such as aerospace and energy through the university department. We’ll be looking for indications as to whether this strength is still there when the fourth quarter results are released. It’s also worth noting that CEO Darius Adamczyk has maintained a relatively optimistic view of the economy in 2023. Investors should buy Honeywell stock on a pullback rather than buy here. After the Bell: Apple, Ford, Alphabet, Qualcomm, Starbucks, Amazon AAPL 1Y Mountain Stock Performance 12 Months. Projected revenue: $121.19 billion Projected earnings per share: $1.94 Conference call at 5 p.m. ET Apple’s (AAPL) fiscal first quarter results for 2023 should answer a question that’s been on investors’ minds for months: How was Production at a major assembly plant in China impacts iPhone shipments, sales and earnings in a crucial holiday quarter? Analysts lowered their estimates to reflect the potential hit, so the outlook appears realistic. We will also be looking for any comment from management regarding foreign exchange. The strong US dollar in 2022 was a huge burden on the company given its large international presence. But the dollar peaked in late September and has fallen more than 10% since then. F 1Y Mountain Ford Motor’s 12-Month Stock Performance. Projected revenue: $40.37 billion Projected earnings per share: 62 cents On conference call at 5 p.m. Ford Motor Company (F)’s fourth quarter release will be the last of its kind. Starting with this year’s first-quarter results, Ford will report specific results for its electric vehicle division (Ford e), traditional internal combustion engine unit (Ford Blue) and commercial segment (Ford Pro). It’s an important step to give investors more transparency about Ford’s multi-billion-dollar electric vehicle transformation plan, which is the basis of the club’s long-term investment case for the automaker. Ford’s 2023 guidance, released along with its fourth-quarter report, will provide clues about how management expects a number of headwinds — including the impact of higher interest rates on vehicle affordability — to affect its business this year. Additionally, we expect Ford’s decision to lower prices on its electric Mustang Mach-E crossover, while increasing production, to be a topic of discussion on Thursday’s earnings call. GOOGL 1Y Mountain Alphabet 12-Month Stock Performance. Projected revenue: $75.69 billion Projected earnings per share: $1.18 Conference call at 4:30 p.m. ET An uncertain economic picture has hampered the digital advertising market, which Google subsidiary Alphabet (GOOGL) relies on for the bulk of its revenue. . It played a big role in slowing underlying growth in the second and third quarters, and that’s expected to be the case again in the fourth quarter. Analysts’ agreed revenue estimate would translate to revenue growth of approximately 1% year-over-year for the prior period ended December 31, compared to 13% and 6% in the second and third quarters, respectively. Despite ongoing concerns about the digital advertising market, Alphabet shares are up more than 12% so far in 2023, as part of a broader rebound in battered tech stocks. Alphabet shares are down 39% in 2022. We’ll be looking for additional evidence Thursday that shows Alphabet management is serious about controlling expenses in the face of slowing revenue growth. The company announced earlier this month that it would lay off 12,000 employees, or about 6% of its global workforce. However, there could be more job cuts at the company, which has hired aggressively during much of the Covid-19 pandemic. Reductions in capital expenditures will also help protect margins. QCOM 1Y Mountain Qualcomm’s 12-Month Stock Performance. Projected revenue: $9.6 billion Projected earnings per share: $2.35 Conference call at 4:45 p.m. ET Guidance from Qualcomm (QCOM) along with its earnings for the first quarter of 2023 will likely receive a lot of attention, as Provides clues as to when the smartphone company expects its chip stock glut to improve materially. That oversupply — stemming from weaker smartphone demand and an easing of supply chain constraints — led Qualcomm to issue dismal first-quarter guidance back in November. Analysts factored in management’s poor expectations in their estimates, which means the actual results bar is much lower than it was a few months ago. However, projections vary about when the headwinds in the smartphone market will turn into a tailwind, so any relevant comment from management would be appreciated. While Qualcomm is diversifying into areas such as automobiles, smartphones still account for most of the company’s product revenue. SBUX 1Y Mountain Starbucks 12-Month Stock Performance. Projected revenue: $8.77 billion Projected earnings per share: 77 cents 5 p.m. conference call in the U.S. Investors will focus on whether Starbucks’ (SBUX) same-store sales growth in the company’s largest market can remain resilient, though Concerns about an economic slowdown. When the coffee maker reports first-quarter 2023 financial results on Thursday, we also expect management’s commentary on consumer trends to be insightful. In China, Starbucks’ second-largest market and a key hub for long-term expansion, investors are looking forward to the pace of the company’s business recovery now that Beijing has ended its so-called zero Covid policy. China’s reopening has boosted investor sentiment toward stocks like Starbucks, even if there is some uncertainty about when it will reach an inflection point and provide a lift to operating margins. AMZN 1Y Mountain Amazon 12-Month Stock Performance. Projected revenue: $145.45 billion Projected earnings per share: 17 cents during the conference call at 5:30 p.m. Shares of Amazon (AMZN) are up nearly 20% to start the year, after a brutal 2022 in which the tech giant lost nearly 50%. of its market value. Despite the stock’s strong start to 2023, some uncertainties remain about a slowdown in Amazon’s core business. Thursday’s fourth-quarter report should highlight those potential challenges. Analysts are trying to gauge the impact of economic uncertainty and slowing retail sales on Amazon’s core e-commerce business. Some relative weakness is expected in the December quarter. On the cloud computing side, there are also concerns about slowing growth of Amazon Web Services as enterprise customers tighten their belts. At the same time, analysts believe these near-term pressures should be partially offset by recent job cuts at Amazon, which are expected to help the company’s bottom line in the coming quarters. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is EL, LLY, HON, AAPL, F, GOOGL, QCOM, SBUX, AMZN. See here for a full list of stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, get a trade alert before he Jim makes a deal. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a share in his charity fund portfolio. If Jim talks about a stock on CNBC, he waits 72 hours after the trade alert is issued before executing the trade. 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iPhone 14 phones on display inside the Apple Store in Marunouchi, Tokyo.
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The club’s earnings season will reach a fever pitch on Thursday, when nine — yes, nine — companies in the Jim Cramer Charitable Trust will report quarterly results.