Retailing giant Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) is scheduled to report 19Q3 earnings after the close on Oct. 24. The company known for industry disruption is expected to increase third quarter ad-revenue 71.7% from the prior year and to far outpace the 14.2% outlook for the S&P 500 media entertainment industry group. Analysts also anticipate that Amazon will outperform the S&P 500’s interactive media & services industry (19.5%), which consists of names such as Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O, GOOG.O), Facebook Inc (FB.O), and Twitter Inc (TWTR.N).

In Jan 2018 we published our top ten second quarter earnings surprise candidates based on StarMine predictive analytics models. Of these 18Q4 North American earnings surprise candidates picks, 67% were correct. The StarMine SmartEstimate®  is a weighted average of analyst estimates, with more weight given to more recent estimates and more accurate analysts. Our studies have shown that when the SmartEstimate® differs significantly from the consensus (IBES Mean), the Predicted Surprise accurately predicts the direction of earnings surprises or further revisions 70% of the time. When significant Predicted Surprise for revenue is also present for the period, the accuracy improves to 78%.