Third-Quarter Earnings: Sneak Preview
The earnings-reporting season gets underway in earnest this week, and earnings-tracker First Call Corp. expects blue-chip companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index to post third-quarter profits 19.3% above year-ago levels, on average, based on its latest survey of analysts. Oil producer Apache Corp. is expected to post the biggest increase, and Bethlehem Steel Corp. is expected to post the largest decrease. Note that in most cases First Call’s projections are based on operating earnings, which exclude onetime charges and credits.
Top 15
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Ticker Monday Consensus Year-ago Expected Company symbol close EPS* est. EPS* change Apache APA $40.06 $0.50 $0.03 1,567% Scientific-Atlanta SFA 53.88 0.28 0.03 833 Applied Materials AMAT 82.75 0.63 0.07 800 Unocal UCL 35.81 0.17 0.02 750 Motorola MOT 96.63 0.53 0.07 657 Union Pacific UNP 49.44 0.82 0.13 531 Kerr-McGee KMG 56.44 1.14 0.20 470 Atlantic Richfield ARC 86.25 1.21 0.22 450 Merrill Lynch MER 67.75 1.29 0.28 361 Georgia-Pacific GP 40.50 1.22 0.30 307 J.P. Morgan JPM 115.56 2.15 0.58 271 Citigroup C 45.88 0.68 0.20 240 St. Paul SPC 27.50 0.62 0.19 226 Qualcomm QCOM 222.50 0.88 0.27 226 Burlington Resources BR 37.44 0.25 0.08 213
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Bottom 15
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Ticker Monday Consensus Year-ago Expected Company symbol close EPS* est. EPS* change** Bethlehem Steel BS $7.13 -$0.63 $0.21 -100% Data General DGN 23.25 -0.10 0.07 -100 Seagram VO 44.13 -0.32 0.27 -100 Seagate SEG 31.75 -0.07 0.19 -100 USAirways U 31.38 -0.27 1.51 -100 Case CSE 51.00 -0.08 0.82 -100 Deere DE 39.19 -0.06 0.71 -100 American Greetings AM 25.81 -0.01 0.20 -100 Rowan RDC 16.44 0.00 0.38 -100 PeopleSoft PSFT 16.38 0.01 0.17 -94 Baker Hughes BHI 28.75 0.02 0.20 -90 Safeco SAFC 27.56 0.09 0.46 -80 Clear Channel Comm. CCU 76.75 0.01 0.05 -80 McDermott Intl. MDR 19.56 0.19 0.84 -77 USX-U.S. Steel X 25.19 0.15 0.63 -76
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* Earnings per share
** All companies expected to post a loss show earnings declines of 100%.
