FuboTV (NYSE:FUBO) is scheduled to release earnings on May 5. I don’t suggest that investors jump in prior to that date with the hope that it moves upward. Investors are well aware that growth plays are out of fashion currently. With rampant inflation at runaway levels, the U.S. Federal Reserve has backed off of its prior easy money quantitative policies. Higher interest rates make growth plays overall much less attractive, FUBO stock among them.

Prior to any earnings release, investors scramble to understand the fundamentals of a given company. That’s also true of FuboTV. Investors want to know if its fundamental situation has improved. If it has, that theoretically means it should move upward when those earnings results are released.

So what fundamental metrics should we be seeking to understand for Fubo?  For one, revenues. From that perspective, FUBO stock might appear attractive. According to Yahoo! Finance,  FuboTV is expected to generate nearly $243 million in sales this quarter. That represents quarter-on-quarter growth in excess of 100%. Sounds good right? Not so fast.

The problem is that EPS earnings estimates continue to move in the wrong direction. Those same Yahoo! Finance expectations show that FuboTV will record somewhere in the neighborhood of a -65 cent EPS this quarter. Last year’s EPS  figures for the same time period amounted to – $0.59. 

That means FUBO stock is behaving as many growth stocks do. Impressive top-line growth paired with increasing losses. That is exactly the kind of stock that gets punished as interest rates increase. So my expectation is that even if FuboTV EPS figures are slightly better than -65 cents, it probably doesn’t matter. Those EPS figures have to be better than the -59 cents that the firm posted a year earlier.

That’s what investors are going to be looking for in this environment. Is the company moving toward profitability or is it moving farther away from profitability? Those -59 cent EPS figures from a year prior are the perfect gauge by which to judge this. Since we know that there’s little chance FUBO stock beats that figure on May 5th, there’s little reason to be optimistic. 

On the date of publication, Alex Sirois did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.