Benzinga | Oct 22, 2020 10:08AM EDT

Earnings Outlook For Cleveland-Cliffs

On Friday, October 23, Cleveland-Cliffs (NYSE: CLF) will release its latest earnings report. Benzinga's report can help you figure out the ins and outs of the earnings release.

Net Income, Earnings, And Earnings Per Share

Earnings and especially earnings per share (EPS) are useful measures of a company's profitability. Total earnings, which is also referred to as net income, equals total revenue minus total expenses. EPS equals to net income divided by the number of shares outstanding.

Earnings And Revenue

Sell-side analysts are expecting Cleveland-Cliffs's loss per share to be near $0.1 on sales of $1.60 billion. In the same quarter last year, Cleveland-Cliffs posted EPS of $0.33 on sales of $555.60 million.

Why Analyst Estimates And Earnings Surprises Are Important

Analysts who cover this company will publish forward-looking estimates of its revenue and EPS each quarter. Averaging together every EPS and revenue prediction that each analyst makes about a company in a quarter yields the "consensus estimates." A company posting earnings or revenue above or below the consensus estimate is known as an "earnings surprise" and may move the stock by a considerable margin.

If the company were to post earnings in line with the consensus estimate when it reports Friday, EPS would be down 130.3%. Revenue would be have grown 187.98% from the same quarter last year. The company's reported EPS has stacked up against analyst estimates in the past like this:

Quarter Q2 2020 Q1 2020 Q4 2020 Q3 2019EPS Estimate -0.50 -0.16 0.24 0.26EPS Actual -0.31 0.04 0.25 0.33Revenue Estimate 1.08 B 366.23 M 549.39 M 552.28 MRevenue Actual 1.09 B 324.50 M 534.10 M 555.60 M

Stock Performance

Shares of Cleveland-Cliffs were trading at $7.99 as of October 21. Over the last 52-week period, shares are up 14.13%. Given that these returns are generally positive, long-term shareholders are probably content going into this earnings release.

Do not be surprised to see the stock move on comments made during its conference call. Cleveland-Cliffs is scheduled to hold the call at 10:00:00 ET and can be accessed here.