Zoom Video Communications Inc. (ZM) reports fiscal Q1 2022 earnings after Monday’s closing bell, with analysts looking for a profit of $1.16 per-share on $990.2 million in revenue. If met, earnings-per-share (EPS) will mark a 26% profit increase compared to the same quarter last year. The virtual meeting provider has beaten estimates every quarter since coming public in April 2019, posting a 191.4% year-over-year revenue increase in the quarter ending May 31st.
Growing Competition in a Post-Pandemic World
The company continues to diversify its product catalog after 2020’s historic uptrend, driven by pandemic lockdowns around the world. Meanwhile, multiple competitors are offering alternatives to the Zoom platform at the same time that lockdowns have drawn huge political opposition, despite the rise of the Delta variant. It’s been a race against time for Zoom, seeking to replace lost income to maintain its rich valuation and high stock price.
Morgan Stanley analyst Meta Marshall upgraded Zoom to ‘Overweight’ last week, noting “we think that enterprise momentum, combined with margin headwinds dissipating, creates a positive setup into FQ2. While revenue expectations are not low, we believe they are doable, which combined with upcoming Zoomtopia and FY23 guidance in a couple of quarters, leaves us more optimistic on the stock at current valuation”.
Wall Street and Technical Outlook
Wall Street consensus has improved in the last three months, now standing at an ‘Overweight’ rating based upon 14 ‘Buy’, 1 ‘Overweight’, 11 ‘Hold’, 1 ‘Underweight’, and 1 ‘Sell’ recommendation. Price targets currently range from a low of $242 to a Street-high $525 while the stock ended Friday’s session more than $75 below the median $416 target. This low placement highlights investor apathy toward pandemic beneficiaries, most recently illustrated by Peloton Interactive Inc.’s (PTON) steep post-earnings slide.
Zoom broke out above the 2009 high at 107.34 in February 2020, entering an historic uptrend that hit an all-time high at 588.84 in October, just weeks before Pfizer Inc. (PFE) and BioNTech SE (BNTX) announced the success of their vaccine. The stock has posted a long series of lower highs and lower lows since that time, crisscrossing the 200-day moving average and 50% rally retracement repeatedly since March. Accumulation fell to an 8-month low last week, highlighting slow-motion profit-taking that could easily stretch into the fourth quarter.
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Disclosure: the author held no positions in aforementioned securities at the time of publication.
This article was originally posted on FX Empire
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