How Will Conagra Stock React To Its Upcoming Q3 Earnings?
Conagra Brands (NYSE: CAG) is scheduled to release its fiscal third-quarter earnings (the company is on a May fiscal year) on Thursday, April 3, 2025. Analysts forecast earnings of $0.53 per share and revenue of $2.90 billion, reflecting a 17% decline in earnings and a 4% reduction in sales compared to the previous year’s figures of $0.64 per share and $3.03 billion, respectively. Investors will closely watch the company’s performance amid persistent challenges. Conagra recently revised its fiscal 2025 financial outlook, citing customer service disruptions in the third quarter stemming from supply shortages on two key product categories: frozen meals containing chicken and frozen vegetables. Additionally, adverse foreign exchange conditions are projected to further pressure profitability. Notably, the updated guidance excludes any potential impacts of new tariffs.
The company’s current market capitalization is $13 billion. Its revenue over the last twelve months was $12 billion, and it was operationally profitable, with $720 million in operating profits and net income of $493 million. While a lot will depend on how results stack up against consensus and expectations, understanding historical patterns might turn the odds in your favor if you are an event-driven trader.
There are two ways to do that: understand the historical odds and position yourself before the earnings release, or look at the correlation between immediate and medium-term returns post-earnings and position yourself accordingly after the earnings are released. That said, if you seek upside with lower volatility than individual stocks, the Trefis High-Quality portfolio presents an alternative – having outperformed the S&P 500 and generated returns exceeding 91% since its inception. See earnings reaction history of all stocks.
Conagra’s Historical Odds Of Positive Post-Earnings Return
Some observations on one-day (1D) post-earnings returns:
- There are 18 earnings data points recorded over the last five years, with 7 positive and 11 negative one-day (1D) returns observed. In summary, positive 1D returns were seen about 39% of the time.
- Notably, this percentage increases to 42% if we consider data for the last 3 years instead of 5.
- Median of the 7 positive returns = 1.8%, and median of the 11 negative returns =-2.0%
Additional data for observed 5-Day (5D), and 21-Day (21D) returns post earnings are summarized along with the statistics in the table below.
Correlation Between 1D, 5D, and 21D Historical Returns
A relatively less risky strategy (though not useful if the correlation is low) is to understand the correlation between short-term and medium-term returns post earnings, find a pair that has the highest correlation, and execute the appropriate trade. For example, if 1D and 5D show the highest correlation, a trader can position themselves “long” for the next 5 days if 1D post-earnings return is positive. Here is some correlation data based on 5-year and 3-year (more recent) history. Note that the correlation 1D_5D refers to the correlation between 1D post-earnings returns and subsequent 5D returns.
NKE Correlation Between 1D, 5D and 21D Historical Returns
Is There Any Correlation With Peer Earnings?
Sometimes, peer performance can have influence on post-earnings stock reaction. In fact, the pricing-in might begin before the earnings are announced. Here is some historical data on the past post-earnings performance of Conagra Brands stock compared with the stock performance of peers that reported earnings just before Conagra Brands. For fair comparison, peer stock returns also represent post-earnings one-day (1D) returns.
* N/A indicates that the peer reported earnings after CAG
Learn more about Trefis RV strategy that has outperformed its all-cap stocks benchmark (combination of all 3, the S&P 500, S&P mid-cap, and Russell 2000), to produce strong returns for investors.
| Returns | Apr 2025 MTD [1] |
2025 YTD [1] |
2017-25 Total [2] |
| CAG Return | 0% | -3% | -12% |
| S&P 500 Return | 0% | -5% | 149% |
| Trefis Reinforced Value Portfolio | -8% | -9% | 553% |
[1] Returns as of 4/1/2025
[2] Cumulative total returns since the end of 2016
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