Mortgage insurance provider Essent Group (NYSE: ESNT) will be reporting earnings this Friday before market open. Here’s what you need to know.
Essent Group missed analysts’ revenue expectations by 1.6% last quarter, reporting revenues of $311.8 million, down 1.5% year on year. It was a softer quarter for the company, with a significant miss of analysts’ EPS estimates and a miss of analysts’ revenue estimates.
Is Essent Group a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free for active Edge members.
This quarter, analysts are expecting Essent Group’s revenue to decline 1.1% year on year to $311.6 million, a reversal from the 6% increase it recorded in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $1.74 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. Essent Group has missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates three times over the last two years.
Looking at Essent Group’s peers in the property & casualty insurance segment, some have already reported their Q4 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. Stewart Information Services delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 19.6%, beating analysts’ expectations by 2.5%, and First American Financial reported revenues up 21.6%, topping estimates by 15.2%. Stewart Information Services traded up 2.9% following the results.
Read our full analysis of Stewart Information Services’s results here and First American Financial’s results here.
There has been positive sentiment among investors in the property & casualty insurance segment, with share prices up 2.9% on average over the last month. Essent Group is up 11.3% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $68.63 (compared to the current share price of $64.92).
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