JJSF J and J Snack Foods Corporation

The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. (MHP) is slated to report its first-quarter 2013 results on Apr 30, 2013. In the last quarter, it posted bottom-line results that met the Zacks Consensus Estimate. Let’s see how things are shaping up for this announcement.

Growth Factors this Past Quarter

McGraw-Hill's strategic investments in businesses facilitate it to generate long-term profitability. The formation of S&P Dow Jones Indices coupled with S&P Capital IQ’s acquisitions of Credit Market Analysis Limited, QuantHouse, R2 Financial Technologies and TheMarkets.com position it well against its competitors to grab a wider market through superior functionality and investor oriented services and in turn help boost the top- and bottom-line results of the company.

Earnings Whispers?

Our proven model does not conclusively show that McGraw-Hill is likely to beat earnings this quarter. This is because a stock needs to have both a positive Earnings ESP (Read :Zacks Earnings ESP: A Better Method) and a Zacks Rank #1, #2 or #3 for this to happen. This is not the case here as you will see below.

Zacks ESP: ESP for McGraw-Hill is 0.00%. This is because the Most Accurate Estimate stands at 74 cents, which is in line with the Zacks Consensus Estimate.

Zacks Rank #2 (Buy): McGraw-Hill’s Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) lowers the predictive power of ESP because the Zacks Rank #2 when combined with 0.00% ESP makes surprise prediction difficult. We caution against stocks with Zacks Ranks #4 and #5 (Sell rated stocks) going into the earnings announcement, especially when the company is seeing negative estimate revisions momentum.

Stocks that Warrant a Look

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

Hertz Global Holdings, Inc. (HTZ), Earnings ESP of +5.56% and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy)

J&J Snack Foods Corp.(JJSF), Earnings ESP of +9.84% and a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy)

Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), Earnings ESP of +14.29% and a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

 
AMAZON.COM INC (AMZN): Free Stock Analysis Report
 
HERTZ GLBL HLDG (HTZ): Free Stock Analysis Report
 
J&J SNACK FOODS (JJSF): Free Stock Analysis Report
 
MCGRAW-HILL COS (MHP): Free Stock Analysis Report
 
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