Deere Preview: A Flat Quarter Ahead of a Forecast 25% Profit Rebound
The last Dow-sized industrial event of the summer earnings calendar arrives next week, when Deere & Company reports fiscal third-quarter results. The company has scheduled its announcement and earnings call for August 20, according to a release carried by Stock Titan, giving investors a read on the farm-equipment cycle just as the broader season winds down.
Expectations for the quarter itself are modest. Analysts forecast diluted earnings of $4.85 per share, up 2.1% from the $4.75 Deere earned in the same quarter a year ago, according to a Barchart preview carried by Yahoo Finance. After several quarters in which agricultural equipment demand and dealer inventories weighed on results, consensus essentially calls for stabilization rather than acceleration.
The near-flat quarterly forecast sits inside a full-year picture that is still slightly negative. For fiscal 2026, analysts expect earnings of $18.27 per share, down 1.2% from the $18.50 Deere reported in fiscal 2025, per the Barchart preview. The story consensus is really telling comes the following year: fiscal 2027 estimates stand at $22.93 per share, which would represent growth of roughly 25.5%. That is a substantial recovery to have penciled in before the trough year has finished printing.
Deere's recent execution supports some of that confidence. In its fiscal second quarter, the company delivered revenue of $13.4 billion and adjusted earnings of $6.55 per share, both ahead of estimates, per the preview, and it has now exceeded Wall Street's EPS estimates in three of its last four quarters. The caution flag in that report was profitability: operating margin came in at 16.7%, down from 18.1% a year earlier, a reminder that beating a lowered bar and rebuilding peak margins are different tasks.
The stock has been rewarded ahead of the evidence. Deere shares have returned 20.1% over the past 52 weeks, according to the Barchart data, and the average analyst price target of $650.73 implies about 7.1% further upside. The rating picture is balanced rather than exuberant: of 24 analysts covering the shares, 11 rate them a strong buy, two a moderate buy and 11 a hold, for a consensus of moderate buy.
That setup gives the August 20 report a familiar earnings-season shape. With a fiscal 2027 rebound of 25% already embedded in estimates, the quarter's reported number may matter less than what management signals about order books, used-equipment inventories and early demand indications for next year. This season has repeatedly punished companies that delivered solid quarters without endorsing the recovery already priced into their shares.
Deere also lands in a thin week for the calendar, after this week's Cisco and Applied Materials reports close out the S&P 500's August cluster alongside next week's big-box retail results. As one of the few remaining large industrial bellwethers to report, its commentary on equipment demand, input costs and rate sensitivity will carry signaling weight for the machinery group well beyond its own print.
