Chefs' Warehouse (CHEF) shares ended the last trading session 4.8% higher at $102.36. The jump came on an impressive volume with a higher-than-average number of shares changing hands in the session. This compares to the stock's 5.8% gain over the past four weeks.
CHEF investors appear encouraged by continued market share gains, growth in customers and product sales, and confidence in the company’s long-term strategy. Strong execution, better use of technology and improving profitability appear to be supporting sentiment despite weather disruptions and uncertainty in the Middle East.
This distributor of specialty food products is expected to post quarterly earnings of $0.64 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of +23.1%. Revenues are expected to be $1.13 billion, up 9.6% from the year-ago quarter.
Earnings and revenue growth expectations certainly give a good sense of the potential strength in a stock, but empirical research shows that trends in earnings estimate revisions are strongly correlated with near-term stock price movements.
For Chefs' Warehouse, the consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has been revised 1.2% lower over the last 30 days to the current level. And a negative trend in earnings estimate revisions doesn't usually translate into price appreciation. So, make sure to keep an eye on CHEF going forward to see if this recent jump can turn into more strength down the road.
The stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks here >>>>
Chefs' Warehouse is a member of the Zacks Food - Miscellaneous industry. One other stock in the same industry, US Foods (USFD), finished the last trading session 2.1% higher at $99.13. USFD has returned 3.5% over the past month.
US Foods' consensus EPS estimate for the upcoming report has remained unchanged over the past month at $1.37. Compared to the company's year-ago EPS, this represents a change of +15.1%. US Foods currently boasts a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).