24/7 Wall St.

Macy’s Inc. (NYSE: M) is scheduled to release its most recent quarterly results before the markets open on Wednesday. The consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters call for $0.35 in earnings per share (EPS) on $5.39 billion in revenue. The same period of last year reportedly had EPS of $0.24 and $5.34 billion in revenue.

At the beginning of this quarter, Macy’s announced that it will start providing a mobile checkout service at its stores. The company will roll out a mobile checkout option, powered by its mobile app, to all full-line Macy’s stores by the end of 2018.

Looking ahead to this quarter, CEO Jeff Gennette, commented in the most recent quarterly report:

We are committed to returning Macy’s, Inc. to comparable sales growth in 2018 and will build on the momentum we created in the fourth quarter of 2017. Macy’s, Inc. had a solid fourth quarter, including strong performance in January, and the full year exceeded our expectations for annual comparable sales and adjusted earnings per diluted share. We are encouraged to see a trend improvement in our brick & mortar business, and we had the 34th consecutive quarter of double-digit growth in our digital business. … On the path to growth in 2018, we will continue to improve our execution, strengthen our product offerings and make the necessary investments to be competitive with today’s demanding consumer.

Excluding Tuesday’s move, Macy’s had outperformed the broad markets, with its stock up 25% in the past 52 weeks. In just 2018 alone, the stock was only up about 18%.

A few analysts weighed in on Macy’s ahead of the release:

• Morgan Stanley has an Underweight rating with a $25 price target.
• OTR Global has a Positive rating.
• Credit Suisse has a Neutral rating with a $31 price target.
• BMO Capital Markets has an Outperform rating with a $42 target.
• Gordon Haskett has a Buy rating and a $36 target price.

Shares of Macy’s were last seen up about 1% at $29.98, with a consensus analyst price target of $29.71 and a 52-week trading range of $17.41 to $32.45.