Nvidia, Costco, Salesforce.com, Ulta Beauty and Amazon are part of Zacks Earnings Preview

For Immediate ReleaseChicago, IL – May 27, 2025 – Zacks.com releases the list of companies likely to issue earnings surprises. This week’s list includes Nvidia NVDA, Costco COST, Salesforce.com CRM, Ulta Beauty ULTA and Amazon AMZN.Taking Stock of the Earnings PictureThe earnings release from Nvidia is the true highlight of this week’s earnings docket, though there are a few other bellwethers on deck to report results as well, including Costco, Salesforce.com and Ulta Beauty. We have close to 100 companies reporting results this week, including 14 S&P 500 members.It is no exaggeration to say that Nvidia has emerged as a leader of the broader artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem, with its chips running the models. The stock has struggled this year, as sentiment on the AI space soured in the aftermath of the DeepSeek announcement in January. There had already been some angst in the market about the ever-rising AI-focused spending by Mag 7 players like Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft, with the issue becoming front and center following the DeepSeek announcement.Nvidia is expected to bring in 85 cents in EPS on $42.6 billion in revenues, representing year-over-year changes of +39.3% and +63.7%, respectively. Estimates have been under pressure, with the current 85 cents estimate down from 87 cents a week ago and 93 cents two months back.A big contributing factor to the pressure on estimates has been worries among analysts that Nvidia’s near-term margins may face some squeeze as it transitions to the new Blackwell GPU from the Hopper unit. There had been some concern over the last couple of quarters about Nvidia’s ability to ramp up Blackwell production efficiently, but all indications are that the ramp-up is proceeding smoothly and the demand for the unit is significantly above what had been experienced in the comparable period the year before for Hopper.Jensen Huang, the Nvidia CEO, noted at a recent industry conference that Blackwell demand from the four largest hyperscalers was running three times as much as was the case from the same customers for Hopper at the comparable period in 2024. The company has outlined a Blackwell Ultra version to follow the full Blackwell ramp-up.While hyperscaler demand over the near-to-medium-term is expected to remain robust, it will eventually taper off. But the recent announcements of major datacenter deals with sovereign wealth funds in the UAE and Saudi Arabia suggest that Nvidia likely has a big runway ahead of it.In terms of valuation, Nvidia shares aren’t cheap, but they are hardly the nose-bleed valuation of a couple of years back.With Nvidia as the only Mag 7 member that has yet to report Q1 results, earnings for the group are on track to +27.2% from the same period last year on +12.2% higher revenues.Beyond Nvidia, the earnings focus will remain on big-box retailers, with Costco coming out with results. Costco has been a true category leader, with a higher-income customer group that is loyal to the company’s value offerings.Costco is better positioned to navigate the uncertain tariff environment than many other retailers. The company’s U.S. business accounts for more than 70% of its revenues, and two-thirds of the merchandise in Costco U.S. is sourced domestically. Of the imported merchandise, roughly one-third of the total comes from China, Mexico, and Canada combined, and no one country is a dominant supplier.Costco is expected to report $4.25 per share in earnings on $63.1 billion in revenues, representing year-over-year changes of +12.4% and +7.9%, respectively. Estimates have inched up since the quarter got underway, with the current $4.25 estimate up from $4.24 a month back and $4.23 two months ago. Costco’s earnings and revenues in the current fiscal year (ends in August 2025) are expected to increase +11.5% and +7.9% from the preceding year’s levels, respectively.The company remains well-positioned to sustain this growth momentum in the following year as well on the back of mid-single-digit comp growth and growth in membership fee income in high-single digits. No doubt, the stock has been a standout performer, handily outperforming the broader market (+10.3% vs. -1.2%) in the year-to-date period.With respect to the Retail sector 2025 Q1 earnings season scorecard, we now have results from 28 of the 33 retailers in the S&P 500 index. Regular readers know that Zacks has a dedicated stand-alone economic sector for the retail space, unlike the placement of the space in the Consumer Staples and Consumer Discretionary sectors in the Standard & Poor’s standard industry classification.The Zacks Retail sector includes Costco, Walmart, other traditional retailers, online vendors like Amazon, and restaurant players. Total Q1 earnings for these 28 retailers that have reported are up +11.2% from the same period last year on +5% higher revenues, with 60.7% beating EPS estimates and only 57.1% beating revenue estimates.The EPS and revenue beats percentages for these companies are tracking significantly below the historical averages for this group of companies.Concerning the elevated earnings growth rate at this stage, we like to show the group’s performance with and without Amazon, whose results are among the 28 companies that have reported already. As we know, Amazon’s Q1 earnings were up +42.6% on +8.6% higher revenues, beating EPS and top-line expectations.As we all know, the digital and brick-and-mortar operators have been converging for some time now. Amazon is now a decent-sized brick-and-mortar operator after Whole Foods and Walmart is a growing online vendor. This long-standing trend got a huge boost from the COVID-19 lockdowns.Earnings for the group outside of Amazon are down -5% on a +3.8% top-line gain, which points to margin pressures for the group.The Q1 Earnings ScorecardThrough Friday, May 23rd, we have seen Q1 results from 478 S&P 500 members or 95.6% of the index’s total membership. With less than two dozen S&P 500 members still to report results at this stage, the Q1 reporting cycle has actually ended for 10 of the 16 Zacks sectors, with just a few companies still left to report for each of the remaining 6 sectors.Earnings for these 478 index members that have reported results are up +11.6% from the same period last year on +4.3% revenue gains, with 74.3% of the companies beating EPS estimates and 63% beating revenue estimates.The EPS and revenue beats percentages are tracking below historical averages, with the Q1 EPS beats percentage of 74.3% comparing to the average for the same group of 78.3% over the preceding 20-quarter period (5 years). The Q1 revenue beats percentage of 63% compares to the 5-year average for this group of index members of 71.1%.Is the Turnaround in Estimates for Real?Looking at Q1 as a whole, combining the actuals from the 478 S&P 500 members with estimates for the still-to-come companies, the expectation is that earnings will be up +12.3% from the same period last year on +4.6% higher revenues, which would follow the +14.1% earnings growth on +5.7% revenue gains in the preceding period.The magnitude of cuts to 2025 Q2 estimates since the start of the period is bigger and more widespread relative to what we have become used to seeing in the post-COVID period. But you have likely noticed in recent weeks that we have been pointing to signs of stabilization in Tech sector estimates, both for Q2 as well as full-year 2025.We knew something was up, as the early signs of these revision trends started showing up in the data. It may be premature to say that the trend has completely reversed. But it nevertheless shows that the revisions trend has stabilized.For more details about the evolving earnings picture, please check out our weekly Earnings Trends report here >>>> A Closer Look At Retail EarningsWhy Haven't You Looked at Zacks' Top Stocks?Since 2000, our top stock-picking strategies have blown away the S&P's +7.7% average gain per year. 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These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.Zacks Names #1 Semiconductor StockIt's only 1/9,000th the size of NVIDIA which skyrocketed more than +800% since we recommended it. NVIDIA is still strong, but our new top chip stock has much more room to boom.With strong earnings growth and an expanding customer base, it's positioned to feed the rampant demand for Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Internet of Things. Global semiconductor manufacturing is projected to explode from $452 billion in 2021 to $803 billion by 2028.See This Stock Now for Free >>Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN): Free Stock Analysis Report Salesforce Inc. (CRM): Free Stock Analysis Report NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA): Free Stock Analysis Report Costco Wholesale Corporation (COST): Free Stock Analysis Report Ulta Beauty Inc. (ULTA): Free Stock Analysis ReportThis article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).Zacks Investment ResearchWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Zacks Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Zacks