Monsanto (MON) Q1 Earnings Beats, Revenues Miss – Tale of the Tape

Zacks

Monsanto Company (MON) is a leading global provider of agricultural products, especially row crop and vegetable seeds, biotechnology traits that assist farmers in controlling insects and weeds, and herbicides for agricultural, industrial, ornamental, turf, and residential lawn and garden applications. This Missouri-based company presently has a $56 billion market capitalization.

However, this agricultural products company faces stiff competition from numerous agrochemical and seed marketers, forcing the company to come up with high-yielding varieties. Also, the company’s financials are largely impacted by foreign currency translations and economic conditions of the countries where it operates. Investors are eagerly waiting for the company’s latest earnings report.

Monsanto has a decent record in earnings season. In the last four trailing quarters, the company missed the estimate only once, leading to a positive average earnings surprise of 0.08%.

Currently, MON has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), but that could definitely change after the release of its upcoming earnings report. We have highlighted some of the key stats from this just-revealed announcement below:

Earnings: Monsanto’s earnings from continuing operations came in at 47 cents per share in first-quarter of fiscal 2015 (ended Nov 2014). The bottom line result surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 34 cents.

Revenue: Revenues missed. Monsanto generated revenues of $2,870 million, below the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2,956 million.

Key Stats to Note: Monsanto’s Soybean seed and traits business fared well with revenues up 48.3% year over year to $396 million. Free cash flow was $969 million, soaring nearly 112% year over year.

Stock Price: Monsanto shares were down almost 0.9% ahead of the report but gained nearly 0.6% in pre-market trading session. Clearly, the initial reaction to the release is positive.

Check back our full write up on this MON earnings report later!

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