Deep Dive: 31 stocks have hit a trifecta so far this earnings season

Zillow Group Inc.
Z,
-20.24%
provided an example of a big earnings splash on Nov. 2 after the market close. While announcing its quarterly results, the company said it was exiting its Zillow Offers business.

That was a major change of strategy after the company, whose primary business is listing real estate for sale or rental, began buying and selling homes in 2018. Zillow said it would lay off about 25% of its workforce. The stock was down as much as 19% in morning trading on Nov. 3; it had already fallen 33% in 2021 through Nov. 2.

Below is a list of companies whose financial results have shown significant improvement from a year earlier.

Stock screen for happier earnings-season results

The following screen focuses on sales and margins because of the vagaries of companies’ reported earnings, which are often distorted for a quarter or a year by one-time events.

• Through Nov. 2, among the S&P 500
  SPX,
  -0.07%,
  289 companies had reported results for fiscal quarters ended Aug. 14 or later.

• Among those 289, 31 companies met the following qualifications:

• Quarterly sales had risen from the year-earlier quarter.

• Gross and operating margins for the quarter were improved from a year earlier. These measures aren’t used for most financial-services companies, so most were excluded from the screen. For some of the other companies, FactSet cannot calculate gross or operating margins (or both) without the set of GAAP data available later, when the 10-Q reports come out (generally within 45 days of the end of the reported fiscal quarter).

• Consensus sales estimates for calendar 2022 have increased at least 2% from where they were Sept. 30. We have used calendar years for a uniform set of estimates, even though many companies have fiscal years that don’t match the calendar.

A company’s gross margin is its net revenue minus the cost of goods or services sold. It reflects a company’s pricing power and its direct production costs, including labor and materials. A company’s management team might decide to build market share by increasing discounts to customers or holding the line on price increases. This may be worthwhile depending on the competitive environment, but it cannot go on forever. It’s a good sign if the gross margin is expanding as sales increase.

A company’s operating margin goes further, subtracting more overhead and other expenses that aren’t directly related to the production of goods and services sold. It is, essentially, earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) divided by sales.

Here are the 31 companies that have hit the trifecta so far this earnings season. There are two tables, sorted by how much quarterly sales increased from a year earlier. The first table includes the screening data and the second table is a summary of opinions among analysts polled by FactSet:

Click on the tickers for more about each company. Click here for Tomi Kilgore’s detailed guide to the wealth of information available for free on MarketWatch’s quote page.

Airlines lead the list, which is no surprise, as the group was moving toward normal operations following the incredible disruption from the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. There are also several energy companies on the list that have benefitted from rising demand and supply disruptions during the pandemic recovery. But many other industries are represented.

Leaving the group in the same order, here’s a summary of analysts’ opinions:

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