Earnings Season Kicks Off: Alcoa And Intel

• The fourth-quarter reporting season kicks off this week with results from Alcoa.
• The latest earnings report from Intel is another highlight this week.
• Consensus forecasts call for declining earnings from both of them.

The fourth-quarter reporting season kicks off when leading aluminum producer Alcoa Inc AA shares its latest results. Investors used to look to this former Dow Jones Industrial Average component to set the tone for the new earnings season, but that may not be so much the case anymore. Still, its report marks the traditional kickoff of the season.

The big banks begin to take their turns in the earnings spotlight at the end of the week, but the other big highlight will be the fourth-quarter report from semiconductor giant Intel Corporation INTC, offering a first glimpse at what to expect in the technology sector.

Below is a quick look at what is expected from the reports of Alcoa and Intel. Expectations for the big banks will be featured in a separate report.

Alcoa

Wall Street's fourth-quarter forecast for Alcoa calls for earnings per share to have tumbled from $0.33 in the year ago period to $0.02. Some 115 Estimize respondents predict EPS will be slightly higher at $0.06 — still a sharp decline year over year. EPS fell short of expectations in the past two quarters.

Revenue missed consensus estimates in the previous period too. This time, Estimize is looking for about $5.34 billion, slightly more optimistic than the $5.29 billion Wall Street expects. Both estimates are about 17 percent lower than a year ago. The company is scheduled to report after Monday's closing bell.

See also: Earnings Season Kicks Off: The Big Banks

Intel

When this leading chipmaker shares its results late Thursday, the consensus forecast of Estimze is that it will show a profit of $0.64 per share for the fourth quarter. That would be down from EPS of $0.74 in the same period of last year. Intel did exceed earnings expectations in the past two quarters.

The company's revenue for the three months that ended in December will be $14.82 billion, or up less than 1 percent year over year, if the 125 survey respondents are correct. For the full year, Wall Street sees revenue down about 1 percent to $55.24 billion, as well as EPS marginally lower to $2.23.

And Others

Also this week, at least some growth on the bottom line is coming from Citigroup, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo, if Wall Street expectations come true. But declines in earnings are predicted for Apollo Education, CSX, SUPERVALU and Taiwan Semiconductor. Fastenal and Infosys are each expected to post EPS that are the same as in the year-ago period.

Watch for upcoming earnings reports from General Electric, Netflix, Southwest Airlines, Verizon Communications and many more as the new earnings season gets underway.

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