Steel wire manufacturer Insteel (NYSE:IIIN) will be reporting earnings tomorrow before the bell. Here’s what investors should know.
Insteel missed analysts’ revenue expectations by 7.5% last quarter, reporting revenues of $134.3 million, down 14.7% year on year. It was a disappointing quarter for the company, with a significant miss of analysts’ EBITDA and EPS estimates.
Is Insteel a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free.
This quarter, analysts are expecting Insteel’s revenue to decline 3.5% year on year to $117.5 million, improving from the 27.1% decrease it recorded in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $0.10 per share.
Analysts covering the company have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business to stay the course heading into earnings.
Looking at Insteel’s peers in the building products segment, some have already reported their Q4 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. Apogee posted flat year-on-year revenue, beating analysts’ expectations by 2.8%, and AZZ reported revenues up 5.8%, topping estimates by 1.8%. Apogee traded down 26.2% following the results while AZZ was also down 1.9%.
Read our full analysis of Apogee’s results here and AZZ’s results here.
Valuation multiples for many growth stocks have not yet reverted to their early 2021 highs, but the market has been optimistic as of late due to a soft landing. This is an economic situation where rate hikes successfully quelled inflation but did not send the economy into a recession. Furthermore, recent rate cuts and Donald Trump's triumph in the 2024 Presidential election have been tailwinds for the market, and while some of the building products stocks have shown solid performance, the group has generally underpeformed, with share prices down 2.7% on average over the last month. Insteel is down 15.9% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $34 (compared to the current share price of $25.02).
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