StarMine Scores 80% Right in Q4 Earnings Surprise Forecast

At the beginning of the fourth quarter, the StarMine research team at Thomson Reuters perused corporate earnings forecasts in search of companies that it believed would be most likely to report a big surprise (positive or negative) when they announced their results. All the numbers are in and we find that StarMine was right in eight out of the 10 picks – just above its historical average.

Using StarMine SmartEstimate® and Predicted Surprise data, we highlighted 10 companies that we believed had a high probability of recording an earnings surprise in the first quarter — five likely to beat the analysts’ consensus estimate and another five  likely to fall short.

In the case of these ten selections – eight went in the direction of the prediction and two went in the opposite direction. Of those two, one company, Barrick Gold came in at the consensus, but we do not give ourselves credit for that. Stay tuned for our picks for the first quarter of 2016.

Positive Surprises

Ticker	Company Name	Mean	SmartEstimate	Actual	Result
W.O	Wayfair Inc.	($0.14)	($0.12)	($0.07)
SWHC.O	Smith & Wesson Holding	$0.36	$0.41	$0.59
MTN.N	Vail Resorts Inc.	$2.97	$3.11	$3.14
SAVE.O	Spirit Airlines Inc.	$0.80	$0.83	$1.02
CST.N	CST Brands Inc	$0.44	$0.47	$0.55

Negative Surprises

Ticker	Company Name	Mean	SmartEstimate	Actual	Result
CMG.O	Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc	$2.05	$1.88	$2.17
LGF.N	Lions Gate Entertainment Corp	$0.64	$0.52	$0.26
BX.N	Blackstone Group LP	$0.73	$0.48	$0.37
ABX.N	Barrick Gold Corporation	$0.08	$0.06	$0.08
COP.N	ConocoPhillips	($0.51)	($0.62)	($0.90)