Updating Panic Points, Consensus EPS for Our Holdings

Following last week’s barrage of Portfolio positions that reported their September quarter results and another five on tap for this week, we’re sharing an updated table of consensus EPS expectations and panic points. We’re also sharing some recent price target adjustments for our positions from other Wall Street firms.

Consensus EPS Adjustments

Amazon’s AMZN 2024 consensus EPS has been increased to $4.99 from $4.73, while its 2025 EPS now sits at $5.99, up from $5.82

Following Eaton’s ETN earnings last week, one that led us to bump up our price target, consensus EPS for this year now sits at $10.76, up from $10.67.

Alphabets’ GOOGL better-than-expected September quarter results prompted consensus EPS for this year to increase to $8.00 from $7.65. Margin prospects explain the increase in 2025 EPS to $8.95 from $8.69.

Similarly, the consensus EPS for Meta META was boosted to $22.09 for this year, up from $21.36. For next year, the new EPS consensus is at $25.13 compared to $24.43 before last week’s earnings report.

Microsoft’s MSFT warning for “somewhat” slower cloud growth in the December and March quarters tempered EPS expectations for next year. Consensus EPS for 2024 was lifted to $12.37 from $12.21 given the September quarter beat. For next year, the market now sees EPS at $13.83, down from $14.18.

Consensus EPS for Morgan Stanley MS gets another leg up to $7.33 for this year, $0.07 per share higher. For next year the consensus has been lifted by nearly a dime per share to $7.93.

Catching up with ServiceNow NOW, the market now sees the company delivering EPS of $13.92 this year and $16.70 next year instead of $13.79 and $16.53, respectively. Parsing the revisions, ServiceNow is still expected to deliver 20% EPS growth year over year.

Recent hurricanes weighed on September quarter results from Vulcan Materials VMC and tempered expectations for the current quarter. That led consensus 2024 EPS to fall to $7.27 from $7.50 with those for 2025 reset at $9.13 from $9.19. Despite the dip in 2025 expectations, the implied year-over-year EPS growth was revised higher to 25% from 22%, which supports our thinking for a better year next year for Vulcan.

While we wait for Waste Management WM to close its planned acquisition of Stericycle SRCL later this quarter, following the company’s recent earnings report the market now sees EPS of $7.34 this year up from $7.29.

All the chatter for AI adoption last week led the 2024 EPS consensus for Elastic NV ESTC to be reset at $1.42, up from $1.35.

When we conclude this week, roughly 90% of the S&P 500 basket will have reported their latest quarterly results and updated their guidance. Once we have those figures in hand, we’ll share an updated look at 2H 2024 and 2025 consensus expectations for that market barometer.

Panic Point Changes

We have reset our Amazon panic point at $162, up from $148

Mastercard’s MA panic point is now at $420 compared to $400 and our $360 cost basis

Our Nvidia NVDA panic point is nudged up to $112 from $108 and is well above the Portfolio’s $83.31 cost basis.

We’ve lifted our ServiceNow panic point to $775 from $750. Our cost basis per share is $662.65

Following the nice run in Trade Desk TTD shares, we’ve bumped up that panic point to $98 from $94, which adds more distance from our $85.52 cost basis for the Portfolio’s position.

Wall Street’s Latest on Our Holdings

Morgan Stanley lifted its Amazon price target to $230 from $210, given greater profitability prospects in 2025 and 2026. It seems Morgan Stanley read our post-earnings alert to you that discussed Amazon’s margin prospects ahead which led us to lift our price target to $240 from $220.

Loop Capital reduced its Apple AAPL price target to $275 from $300. Following Apple’s earnings last week, we maintained our $250 target and shared expectations for some of the higher-end targets to come in. That means we’re not surprised by Loop’s revision, but we will continue to monitor iPhone-facing developments, especially adoption comments once Apple has released iOS 18.2. Current expectations are for that build to land in during the first week of December. We continue to think that timing means the iPhone upgrade cycle is shaping up to be a 2025 more than a 2024 one.

Ahead of Axon’s AXON earnings later this week, Baird upped its target to $460 from $400 citing it has a “strong confidence in trends” and sees a beat and raise quarter. In today’s video, we shared what we’ll be watching in Axon’s earnings report that could lead us to revisit our current price target.

Morgan Stanley upped its price target on Mastercard shares to $544 from $540. We tend to find revisions like that a tad head-scratching. Following Mastercard’s earnings, we kept our $535 price target but shared our plan to review jobs and consumer spending data and revisit our price target as needed.

Bank of America added Trade Desk shares to its “US 1” list, which represents a collection of its “best investment ideas” and is drawn from the firm’s universe of buy-rated stocks.

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At the time of publication, TheStreet Pro Portfolio was long AMZN, ETN, GOOGL, META, MSFT, MS, NOW, VMC, WM, ESTC, MA, NVDA, TTD, AAPL and AXON.