What To Expect From Stratasys's (SSYS) Q4 Earnings

3D printing company Stratasys (NASDAQ:SSYS) will be reporting earnings this Thursday before the bell. Here’s what investors should know.

Stratasys met analysts’ revenue expectations last quarter, reporting revenues of $137 million, down 2.2% year on year. It was a mixed quarter for the company, with a beat of analysts’ EPS estimates but a significant miss of analysts’ adjusted operating income estimates.

This quarter, the market is expecting Stratasys’s revenue to decline 7.4% year on year, a further deceleration from the 3.8% decrease it recorded in the same quarter last year.

Analysts covering the company have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business to stay the course heading into earnings. Stratasys has missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates multiple times over the last two years.

Looking at Stratasys’s peers in the industrial machinery segment, some have already reported their Q4 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. Proto Labs delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 12.1%, beating analysts’ expectations by 5.4%, and Arrow Electronics reported revenues up 20.1%, topping estimates by 6.6%. Proto Labs traded up 25.6% following the results while Arrow Electronics was also up 12.4%.

There has been positive sentiment among investors in the industrial machinery segment, with share prices up 2.4% on average over the last month. Stratasys is down 15.4% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $13.17 (compared to the current share price of $9.41).