Benzinga | Dec 8, 2020 10:07AM EST

United Natural Foods Earnings Preview

United Natural Foods (NYSE:UNFI) announces its next round of earnings this Wednesday, December 09. Here is Benzinga's everything-that-matters guide for this Wednesday's Q1 earnings announcement.

Net Income, Earnings, And Earnings Per Share

Earnings and EPS are useful metrics of profitability. Total earnings also known as net income is equal to total revenue minus total expenses. Dividing net income by the total number of shares outstanding yields EPS.

Earnings And Revenue

Sell-side analysts expect United Natural Foods's EPS to be near $0.74 on sales of $6.81 billion. United Natural Foods EPS in the same period a year ago totaled $0.12. Sales were $6.02 billion.

Why Analyst Estimates And Earnings Surprises Are Important

Analysts who cover this company will publish forward-looking estimates of its revenue and EPS each quarter. Averaging together every EPS and revenue prediction that each analyst makes about a company in a quarter yields the "consensus estimates." A company posting earnings or revenue above or below the consensus estimate is known as an "earnings surprise" and may move the stock by a considerable margin.

If the company were to match the consensus estimate when it reports Wednesday, earnings would be up 516.67%. Sales would be up 13.12% on a year-over-year basis. United Natural Foods's reported EPS has stacked up against analyst estimates in the past like this:

Quarter Q4 2020 Q3 2020 Q2 2020 Q1 2019EPS Estimate 0.74 1.14 0.27 0.28EPS Actual 1.06 1.40 0.32 0.12Revenue Estimate 6.63 B 6.67 B 6.14 B 5.80 BRevenue Actual 6.75 B 6.67 B 6.14 B 6.02 B

Stock Performance

Over the last 52-week period, shares of United Natural Foods are up 161.67%.

Do not be surprised to see the stock move on comments made during its conference call. United Natural Foods is scheduled to hold the call at 08:30:00 ET and can be accessed here.