Inuitive Surgical Earnings To Set Stock Status (ISRG)
After today’s close, we’ll see earnings out of Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ: ISRG). The estimates for the DaVinci robotic surgical device maker from First Call are $0.98 EPS on $178.21 million in revenues. Next quarter estimates are $1.19 EPS on…
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.
After today’s close, we’ll see earnings out of Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ: ISRG). The estimates for the DaVinci robotic surgical device maker from First Call are $0.98 EPS on $178.21 million in revenues. Next quarter estimates are $1.19 EPS on $202.76 million in revenues. Estimates for fiscal Dec-2008 are $5.12 EPS on $857.30 million in revenues.
As this one has stayed strong and been up huge, this is well above key longer-term moving average we like to use for trend establishments. The 50-day moving average is $306.41 and the 200-day moving average is $267.04. With shares flirting at $349.11, it’s a long way above those to determine key long-term support levels. Options expire tomorrow, but traders appear to be braced for a move of $19.00 to $21.00 in either direction.
Analysts have an average price target north of $356.00. Intuitive Surgical’s 52-week trading range is $120.54 to $359.59.
This has been a major growth stock, and the earnings report here will either allow that status to prevail or it will seek a "market adjustment." While that is stating the obvious, this earnings and guidance call could be a critical juncture for the stock. As this stock has risen more than 20-fold over the last 5-years, you can imagine that this one will be closely watched. Throw that in with charity hospitals and other quasi non-profit hospitals recently being under some tighter spending, and you’ve got a horse race.
With 2.5 million shares short and with a fairly low open interest in current month stock options, the trading activity is likely to be the value and growth buyers forming their longer-term opinions after such a long stock run.
Jon C. Ogg
April 17, 2008
Jon Ogg produces the Special Situation Investing Newsletter. He can be reached at [email protected] and he does not own securities in the companies he covers.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.
McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.
His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.
A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.
TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.
McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.