Fast food chain El Pollo Loco (NASDAQ:LOCO) will be announcing earnings results this Thursday after market hours. Here’s what to look for.
El Pollo Loco met analysts’ revenue expectations last quarter, reporting revenues of $123.5 million, up 8.1% year on year. It was a very strong quarter for the company, with an impressive beat of analysts’ EBITDA estimates and a solid beat of analysts’ same-store sales estimates.
Is El Pollo Loco a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free for active Edge members.
This quarter, the market is expecting El Pollo Loco’s revenue to grow 2.6% year on year, in line with the 2.6% increase it recorded in the same quarter last year.
The majority of analysts covering the company have reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business to stay the course heading into earnings. El Pollo Loco has missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates multiple times over the last two years.
Looking at El Pollo Loco’s peers in the traditional fast food segment, some have already reported their Q1 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. Starbucks delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 8.8%, beating analysts’ expectations by 4.3%, and Yum! Brands reported revenues up 15.2%, topping estimates by 0.6%. Starbucks traded up 8.4% following the results while Yum! Brands was also up 2%.
Read our full analysis of Starbucks’s results here and Yum! Brands’s results here.
Investors in the traditional fast food segment have had steady hands going into earnings, with share prices flat over the last month. El Pollo Loco is down 8.5% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $15.63 (compared to the current share price of $13.09).
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