Mini Tech Earnings Season Next Week (ORCL, RHT, RIMM, MU, PALM)

Next Wednesday we will have what almost feels like a tech earnings season, although it’s really just the end of the road before the earnings flurry picks up in mid to late July.  We have Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ:ORCL), Red Hat Inc. (NYSE: RHT), and Research In Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM) all reporting earnings.  To make matters even more interesting, we have Palm Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) and Micron Tech (NYSE: MU) reporting earning on Thursday.  We have included estimates out of First Call and average analyst targets for each, but keep in mind that these estimates will change slightly after the weekend.

Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ:ORCL) is going to to be the most important for determining th strength of enterprise business operations for tech.  The enterprise software giant is expected to post $0.44 EPS on $6.86 Billion in revenues in its year-end report for Fiscal May 2008.  For the year ahead, its May-2009 estimates are expected to be $1.50 EPS on $25.67 Billion in estimates.  Average analyst targets are roughly $25.00.

We will also get earnings out of Linux software maker Red Hat Inc. (NYSE: RHT) with First Call estimates of $0.18 EPS on just over $153 million in revenues.  The next quarter after this for August will also maek its fiscal year end and estimates are $0.19 EPS on $163.36 million in revenues.  As far as average analyst targets, this one is very close with targets being around $23.00 to $24.00.

The entire cell phone and electronic gadget market is going to brace for Research In Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM) earnings on Wednesday.  The company is expected to to post $0.85 EPS on $2.27 Billion in revenues.  For the next quarter estimates are $0.90 EPS on $2.43 Billion in revenues, and the estimates for Fiscal Feb-2009 are $3.88 EPS on $10.35 Billion in revenues.  Analysts have an average of target range of between $160.00 and $165.00, although some newer and raised targets have recently taken this one over $200.00 for a year out.

To make matters even more interesting, we have Palm Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) and Micron Tech (NYSE: MU) reporting earning on Thursday. 

With today being options expiration date we are not including any options expectations to the stocks.  We’ll also follow up ahead of earnings with more detailed analysis on what the charts and other key metric expectations are for each company.  It may be a slow summer, but not every day.

Jon C. Ogg
June 20, 2008