Toast, the restaurant software provider, impressed investors with its fourth-quarter 2023 earnings report, which exceeded expectations. The company reported a loss of $0.07 per share, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of a loss of $0.11 per share. This marks an improvement from a loss of $0.19 per share in the same quarter last year.

The quarterly report also revealed a positive earnings surprise of 36.36%. In the previous quarter, Toast outperformed expectations by posting a loss of $0.09 per share, beating the estimated loss of $0.11 per share. Over the last four quarters, the company has exceeded consensus EPS estimates on three occasions.

In terms of revenue, Toast recorded $1.04 billion for the quarter, exceeding the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2.09%. This is a significant increase compared to the previous year's revenue of $769 million. The company has consistently outperformed consensus revenue estimates over the past four quarters.

Investors are curious about Toast's future prospects, as the stock has already shown a solid performance this year, with a gain of 10.4% compared to the S&P 500's gain of 4.8%. To evaluate the stock's sustainability and future earnings expectations, management's commentary on the earnings call will play a crucial role.

The current estimate revisions trend for Toast suggests a favorable outlook. While the magnitude and direction of these revisions can change following the latest earnings report, the company currently holds a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). This indicates that the shares are expected to outperform the market in the near future.

Analysts are now eagerly awaiting further updates on Toast's earnings expectations for the coming quarters and the current fiscal year. The current consensus EPS estimate is a loss of $0.14 on $1.05 billion in revenues for the upcoming quarter and a loss of $0.37 on $4.81 billion in revenues for the current fiscal year.

It's important for investors to consider the industry's outlook when evaluating the stock's performance. In terms of the Zacks Industry Rank, Internet - Software is currently ranked in the top 30% of all Zacks industries. Research has shown that the top 50% of Zacks-ranked industries tend to outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1.

In the same industry, PagerDuty (PD) is set to release its quarterly results for the period ending January 2024 on March 14. Analysts expect the software developer to report earnings of $0.15 per share, representing a significant year-over-year increase of 87.5%. However, the consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has been revised 14.3% lower over the past 30 days.

PagerDuty's revenues are expected to reach $110.5 million, indicating a 9.4% growth compared to the previous year's quarter.

Investors seeking further insights and recommendations can access the 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days in the report from Zacks Investment Research.

The positive performance of Toast and the optimistic earnings outlook for both Toast and the Internet - Software industry will likely draw the attention of investors as they assess the stock's potential moving forward.