(Photo Credit: Maurizio Pesce)

Tuesday – Darden Restaurants

Darden Restaurants (DRI) which owns several casual dining chains including its crown jewel Olive Garden, is set to report 3rd quarter earnings on Tuesday, December 16 before the opening bell.

Promotional deals including Olive Garden's eyebrow raising 30 day unlimited pasta pass are expected to drive sales higher this quarter. Favorable conditions for the consumer including strong jobs numbers and cheap gasoline may both spur demand. Contributing analysts on Estimize are looking for Darden to report revenue of $1.548 billion, coming up just shy against the Wall Street consensus.

Sales at Darden are expected to drop roughly 24% this quarter compared to the same period of last year due to the firm selling of Red Lobster in July. Activist investment fund Starboard Value adamantly opposed disposing of Red Lobster and in November won all 12 seats on Darden's board of directors. Starboard has been critical of Red Lobster's cavalier spending and will look to pump profitability by giving away fewer breadsticks and elevating a focus on alcohol sales.

The Estimize community expects Darden's earnings to miss the Wall Street consensus by 1 cent per share quarter, improving compared to FQ3 2013, but coming in flat against the same period of 2012.

Wednesday – Oracle

Last quarter Oracle's (ORCL) long serving frontman Larry Ellison stepped down from his role as CEO and appointed 2 co-CEO successors. Heading into Oracle's first quarter in the post-Ellison era Estimize community members are expecting the technology company to continue growing steadily and slightly outperform Wall Street's earnings expectations.

Wednesday Estimize contributors are looking for a 1 cent gain in earnings per share while year over year revenue rises 3%. These results would maintain Oracle's rate of sales expansion over the past 5 quarters and represent a slowing of profit growth to a rate between 1% and 2%.