Filed under: Earnings reports, Agilent Technologies (A), Applied Materials (AMAT)

Tech stocks seem to be the ones to watch. Among companies reporting earnings next week are Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) and Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A), and here are quickie earnings previews for them.

Applied Materials’ five-year earnings per share growth of 45.7 percent is better than the semiconductors industry average and the S&P 500. Applied Materials beat earnings expectations in the first three quarters of 2007. When it reported third quarter results back in August, earnings were 35 cents per share, three cents better than the consensus estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial, as well as the actual EPS in the same period of the previous year. For the fourth quarter, analysts expect only 29 cents per share, or $1.25 for the full year.

The analysts’ consensus recommendation has been to buy Applied Materials for the past six months, but a closer look shows that most analysts are split between buy and hold. The share price has been slipping since reaching a 52-week high of $23.00 in August, almost falling during the week’s Nasdaq volatility back to its 52-week low of $17.33 from a year ago.

For news about tech stocks that could influence Applied Materials’ results, check out BloggingStocks’ Applied Materials coverage.

Continue reading Earnings previews: Applied Materials (AMAT) and Agilent Technologies (A)

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 12th, 2007 at 5:21 am and is filed under Stocks Money News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.