Qualcomm braces for impact

Qualcomm reports its second-quarter results Wednesday (April 20), and Wall Street expects big declines from a year ago.

Thomson Reuters reports that the consensus of 35 analysts is for earnings to be down 33 percent and revenue down 23 percent from the same quarter of last year.

Analysts expect second-quarter earnings per share to be 96 cents with sales $5.34 billion in the quarter. The profit and revenue performance may be down from a year ago, but it should be in line with the company's guidance to analysts three months ago, according to Investor's Business Daily.

When reporting the first quarter, Qualcomm said it was looking for second-quarter earnings-per-share of 90 cents to $1, and revenue of $4.9 billion to $5.7 billion.

Dan Caplinger of The Motley Fool says analysts see "massive declines" in sales and revenue Wednesday.

"It's critical for the company to find a long-term strategy that will help it get out of its downturn," says Caplinger. However, he notes that Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 processor successfully made it into Samsung's Galaxy S7. One problem last year was that the Snapdragon 810 processor did not make it into the Galaxy S6.

Wall Street tends to concentrate more on whether a company's sales and earnings topped estimates, rather than whether they were up or down from the same period of the prior year.

No matter the news, Qualcomm stock could jump Wednesday. Today (April 18) the stock rose almost 1 percent to $51.55, although it was generally a good day for the stock market.