Briggs & Stratton Corporation (BGG) today received a brokerage upgrade to ‘outperform’ from ‘neutral’. The news helped shares gain more than 8%; thereby putting the company on the Zacks #1 Rank Top Performers List for Tuesday.

Volume is at 708,000 shares, which is well above the daily average of nearly 390,000.

The company is scheduled to report fiscal first-quarter numbers later this week. Earnings estimates for this fiscal year and next remain at heightened levels from its last quarterly report.

Briggs & Stratton is one of the world’s largest producers of air cooled gasoline engines for outdoor power equipment. It designs, manufactures, markets and services these products for original equipment manufacturers worldwide. It operates through 2 segments: Engines and Power Products.

Earnings Estimates

BGG’s fiscal year ends in June. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the year ending June 2010 is currently 93 cents per share. There’s been no movement in that estimate over the past 2 months, but it is up 5.7% from the 3-months-ago level of 88 cents.

Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the year ending June 2011 is pegged at $1.22 per share, up 1.7% in the past 30 days. This guidance also suggests year-over-year profit growth of more than 31%.

Fiscal First Quarter Coming Up

Briggs & Stratton will announce its fiscal first quarter on Oct 22. At the moment, the Zacks Consensus Estimate calls for a loss of 25 cents per share.

In its fiscal fourth quarter, which was announced on Aug 13, profit advanced year over year due to improved productivity, more controlled spending, a lower tax rate and lower commodity prices.

BGG earned 24 cents per share, excluding items. The result reversed a year-ago loss and also beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by as much as 700%.

However, net sales declined approximately 17% to $482.8 million from $581.1 million. The decline was attributed to decreased shipment volumes at both of its segments.

For the full fiscal year (2009), BGG reported consolidated sales of $2.09 billion, compared to $2.15 billion in fiscal 2008.

Zacks Investment Research
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