Pet company Central Garden & Pet (NASDAQ: CENT) will be reporting results tomorrow after market close. Here’s what investors should know.

Central Garden & Pet missed analysts’ revenue expectations by 5.7% last quarter, reporting revenues of $669.5 million, down 10.8% year on year. It was a softer quarter for the company, with a significant miss of analysts’ organic revenue and adjusted operating income estimates.

Is Central Garden & Pet a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free.

This quarter, analysts are expecting Central Garden & Pet’s revenue to be flat year on year at $628.7 million, slowing from the 1.1% increase it recorded in the same quarter last year. Adjusted loss is expected to come in at -$0.04 per share.

Analysts covering the company have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business to stay the course heading into earnings. Central Garden & Pet has missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates four times over the last two years.

Looking at Central Garden & Pet’s peers in the household products segment, some have already reported their Q4 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. Clorox’s revenues decreased 15.3% year on year, beating analysts’ expectations by 2.8%, and Procter & Gamble reported revenues up 2.1%, topping estimates by 1.3%. Procter & Gamble traded up 2.8% following the results.

Read our full analysis of Clorox’s results here and Procter & Gamble’s results here.

Valuation multiples for many growth stocks have not yet reverted to their early 2021 highs, but the market has been optimistic as of late due to a soft landing. This is an economic situation where rate hikes successfully quelled inflation but did not send the economy into a recession. Furthermore, recent rate cuts and Donald Trump's triumph in the 2024 Presidential election have been tailwinds for the market, and while some of the household products stocks have shown solid performance, the group has generally underpeformed, with share prices down 3.3% on average over the last month. Central Garden & Pet is down 5.3% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $41.83 (compared to the current share price of $35.67).

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