Intuit Earnings Preview: Double-Digit EPS and Revenue Growth Predicted

Intuit INTU is scheduled to report fiscal third-quarter 2011 results after the market closes on Thursday, May 19. Analysts expect the company to announce that earnings came to $2.28 per share. That is up from the consensus estimate of $2.24 per share 90 days ago, as well as an increase from per-share earnings of $1.89 in the same period of last year. Note that earnings results were better than expected in four of the past five quarters. Intuit is a leading provider of personal finance, small business accounting and consumer tax preparation software for consumers, accountants, and financial institutions from offices in Canada, India, the United Kingdom and the United States. Its flagship products include Quicken, QuickBooks and TurboTax. Competitors include H&R Block HRB, as well as Oracle ORCL and SAP SAP. During the three months that ended in April, Intuit launched TurboTax and GoPayment apps for the iPad and also equipped Ohio Girl Scouts to accept credit card payments for cookie sales. The revenue forecast for that period calls for $1.8 billion, which is an increase of 13.2% from the same period of last year. The company has a long-term earnings per share growth forecast of 17% and a return on equity of 21.3%. The consensus recommendation of analysts has been to buy INTU for more than 90 days; their mean price target is currently $56.92 per share. But shares are trading near the 52-week high of $56.46. The stock has outperformed the software and services industry, as well as competitor H&R Block, year to date.