Portillo's Earnings: What To Look For From PTLO

Casual restaurant chain Portillo’s (NASDAQ:PTLO) will be reporting earnings tomorrow before market hours. Here’s what investors should know.

Portillo's missed analysts’ revenue expectations by 1.4% last quarter, reporting revenues of $181.9 million, up 7.5% year on year. It was a slower quarter for the company, with a miss of analysts’ earnings estimates.

Is Portillo's a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free.

This quarter, analysts are expecting Portillo’s revenue to grow 9.1% year on year to $182.1 million, slowing from the 10.4% increase it recorded in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $0.06 per share.

Heading into earnings, analysts covering the company have grown increasingly bearish with revenue estimates seeing 3 downward revisions over the last 30 days (we track 9 analysts). Portillo's has missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates six times over the last two years.

Looking at Portillo’s peers in the traditional fast food segment, some have already reported their Q3 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. El Pollo Loco posted flat year-on-year revenue, meeting analysts’ expectations, and McDonald's reported revenues up 2.7%, in line with consensus estimates. El Pollo Loco traded down 2.1% following the results while McDonald's was also down 1.8%.

Read our full analysis of El Pollo Loco’s results here and McDonald’s results here.

There has been positive sentiment among investors in the traditional fast food segment, with share prices up 5.3% on average over the last month. Portillo's is up 11.8% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $15.20 (compared to the current share price of $13.81).

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