American Express reported third quarter earnings that surpassed Wall Street's expectations, on strengths in its card business and some other segments. The financial services company’s earnings of $2.08 a share beat analysts’ expectation of $2.03 a share.Merchant and network services revenue rose +5% to $1.7 billion. Looking ahead, the company re-iterated its fourth-quarter expected earnings-per-share growth of +8%, and expected revenue growth of +10%. For  the full-year 2019, the company expects earnings to range between $7.85 and $8.35 a share, compared to  analysts’ expectation of $8.01 a share.  

Coca-Cola Company reported third quarter earnings that matched expectations, while revenue topped estimates. The beverage giant’s adjusted earnings for the three months ending September came in at 56 cents per share, slightly lower than the year-ago quarter.But the figure is in-line with the Street estimates. Total revenues increased +8% year-over-year to $9.5 billion in the quarter, which is higher than analysts' estimates. The company’s sugar free soda Coke Zero experienced double-digit volume growth.

This coming Tuesday we will get earnings results from four companies that are members of the Dow 30—McDonalds (NYSE: MCD), Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG), Travelers Companies (NYSE: TRV), and United Technologies (NYSE: UTX). Rather than breaking down each stock one by one, I thought tables would make it easier to compare how the companies are expected to do for this quarter and how they each stack up with their Tickeron Fundamental Ratings.I took the liberty of highlighting particular stats that are positive (green highlight) and ones that are a concern.

The company and the stock have been struggling in the past year with the company seeing earnings decline while the stock has trended lower. The company is set to report third-quarter earnings results after the market closes on October 29, but that hasn’t been good for the stock in recent quarters. Let’s look at the fundamentals first.For the year analysts expect earnings to decline by 78% compared to 2018. Revenue has grown in the last few years, but at a slower pace than most companies.

International Business Machines (IBM) shares traded sharply lower Thursday, after the group posted weaker-than-expected third quarter revenue. IBM’s non-GAAP earnings for the three months ending in September declined -21.6% to $2.68 per share, a penny ahead of the Street consensus forecast. But total revenues fell -3.9% to $18 billion, which was lower than analysts' forecasts of $18.29 billion. CFO James Kavanaugh mentioned lower customer business volumes in certain markets and some multi-national clients, compared to expectations. Nevertheless, IBM's cloud and cognitive software business, in which it has incorporated Red Hat, experienced a +6.4% rise in revenue to $5.28 billion.The company’s cloud services revenues rose +11% to $5 billion. But the company's  largest segment, global technology services, saw revenues decline -5.6% to $6.7 billion. For the full-year, IBM expects non-GAAP earnings of around $12.80 per share, a figure that is in line with its

Chegg Inc. (NYSE: CHGG) is an online education company that operates a learning platform designed to help students pass tests, classes, and save money on required materials.The company also offers Chegg Study which helps students master difficult concepts, Chegg Writing to help students format and cite sources in written work, and Chegg Tutors which allows students to reach out for human help.

Nvidia shares jumped, after Bank of America analyst re-iterated his rating. Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya affirmed the chipmaker’s stock at buy.That's the highest among Wall Street analysts, as reported by Bloomberg. In an Oct. 15 report, Arya mentioned that his confidence on Nvidia’s growth potential has increased due to what he perceives as strength of the company's natural language processing technology. "Nvidia's data-center growth is on the cusp of benefiting from the next-big artificial-intelligence landmark," the report said.  Nvidia is in a "prime position” to benefit from its portfolio of hardware, software and developer systems, as indicated by Arya.  

JPMorgan Chase & Co.  beat  third quarter earnings expectations, on the back of strengths in fixed-income revenue and  net interest income. For the three months ending in September, the financial giant’s earnings rose +14.5% year-over-year to $2.68 per share, which is 23 cents ahead of the Street consensus forecast. Total revenues for the quarter were $29.3 billion, handily topping analysts' estimates of  $27.8 billion. The company’s  net interest income climbed +2.12% year-over-year to $14.4 billion.Equities revenue, however, fell -5% to $1.5 billion. CEO Jamie Dimon emphasized that the company had a record third quarter in investment banking fees, with particularly strong performance in debt capital and equity capital markets.

According to Wells Fargo, its bottom-line took a major hit from $1.6 billion, or 35 cents a share, an amount set aside to cover litigation costs of "previously disclosed retail sales practices matters." The company’s revenue for the quarter came in at $22 billion (higher than the year-ago quarter’s $21.9 billion), and above the $21.1 billion estimate of analysts polled by FactSet. Wells Fargo is reeling from a string of scandals involving past marketing and sales practices, and it remains to be seen how far its incoming CEO Charles Scharf  will be able to extricate the company out of its chequered past and push it towards a more positive direction.

Goldman Sachs reported lower-than-expected third quarter earnings, amidst declining investment banking revenues.  The financial behemoth’s earnings for the three months ending in September decreased -23.7% year-over-year to $4.79 per share, falling short of  the Street consensus expectation by 5 cents.

UnitedHealth  shares was downgraded by Jefferies, on concerns related to political risks and competition. Jefferies analyst David Windley lowered his rating on the healthcare company to hold from buy citing "the primary poison in the punch bowl, political risk, won't likely abate for at least another nine months." Windley also indicated that UnitedHealth  faces tough competition from Anthem, especially since the latter's market share is expanding while the two companies' geographies overlap. The analyst also cut his price target on UnitedHealth shares to $235 a share from $300.

"  Jefferies thinks that there is little room for any significant same-store growth in fiscal 2020.Jefferies indicated that Kroger’s management has been unable to effectively articulate a sound strategy to revive its core business, and that peers like Walmart will continue to enjoy outsized market share gains.  

The third-quarter earnings season is set to kick off and the big banks are the first group to step into the earnings confessional.JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) and Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) will kick things off when both report before the opening bell on October 15.

Shares of Pioneer Natural Resources received an upgrade from Mizuho Securities analyst, who also hiked his price target on the stock. Mizuho analyst Paul Sankey upgraded his rating to “buy” from “neutral” on the hydrocarbon exploration company’s shares, and raised his price target to $191 from $168 – representing a more than 50% upside  from Wednesday's close price of the stock. Sankey indicated that the company is focusing on sustainable free cash flow growth and has made major progress on cost cuts this year.

On Thursday, NetApp shares got a rating downgrade and a price target cut from Goldman Sachs analyst Rod Hall. Hall lowered his rating on the cloud data services company’s stock to sell from buy.Hill indicated in his note that NetApp’s Enterprise License Agreement guidance of 2% of total revenue in FY’20, which is heavily second-half loaded, may be difficult to achieve given that the deals tend to largely involve larger enterprise customers. However, several other analysts might have had a somewhat different view in the recent past, regarding NetApp shares.

" The cannabis company said that it expects fourth-quarter revenue to range between C$14.5 million to C$16.5 million ($10.9 million to $12.4 million), below Wall Street's forecast of C$24.8 million ($18.6 million).For the full-year, the company projects revenue to range between C$46.5 million and C$48.5 million ($34.9 million to $36.4 million). Hexo was withdrawing its 2020 financial outlook due to regulatory uncertainty across the pan-Canadian system, and jurisdictional decisions that it thinks will limit the availability and types of cannabis derivative products. "While we are disappointed with these results, we are making significant changes to our sales and operations strategy to drive future results," said Sebastien St-Louis, Hexo's CEO and co-founder.  On Monday, Michael Monahan, Hexo’s chief financial officer, resigned from the company, due to his "family's needs."

Cisco Systems shares got downgraded by Goldman Sachs analysts, who also cut their price outlook on the stock. Analyst at Goldman Sachs lowered their rating on the networking hardware/telecom equipment maker’s shares to neutral from buy. Analyst Rod Hall also slashed his price target on the stock to $48, from $56.

Gentex Corp. (Nasdaq: GNTX) is set to release third quarter earnings results on October 18 and the automotive equipment manufacturer is expected to report earnings of $0.42 per share and that would match the results from last year.Sales have grown at a rate of 4% per year over the last three years and are expected to increase by 2.8% this year. Looking at some of the fundamental indicators from Tickeron’s Fundamental Analysis Overview, the Tickeron Profit vs. Risk Rating for Gentex is 24.

Over the next four weeks or so we will get earnings reports from well over half of the companies in the S&P 500.One company that will be reporting is VeriSign (Nasdaq: VRSN), the internet registry and infrastructure firm.

Stoneco (Nasdaq: STNE) debuted on the Nasdaq exchange on October 25, 2018.With the stock coming up on its first anniversary, it just recently hit the lower rail of an upwardly sloped trend channel and it had a bullish signal generated from Tickeron’s Trend Prediction Engine. Looking at the stock’s daily chart over the past year, it has been rather volatile for investors.