Jefferies Group, Discover Financial Services Report Q2 Earnings

Tuesday morning, financial firms Jefferies Group

and Discover Financial Services

both reported second quarter earnings.

Jefferies Group reported adjusted earnings per share of $0.31, close to $0.03 higher than the analyst consensus expectation. The investment banking and securities firm also reported revenues of $706.6 million, beating the analyst expectation of $681.30. Both Q2 adjusted earnings per share and revenue results represented declines from Q2 2011, with adjusted earnings per share declining around 13.9% and revenues declining close to 2.2%. Separately, the company declared a quarterly dividend of $0.075 per share. Jefferies has issued quarterly dividends of $0.075 per share since the beginning of 2010. Investors might interpret consistent dividend payments as a sign that a company is stable. In a statement, Richard B. Handler, Jefferies' Chairman and Chief Executive Officer said, "Our results reflect our continued strength in investment banking and the durability of our sales and trading platform despite the challenging market environment that again evolved during the quarter.” Following Tuesday's release, shares of Jefferies traded up in pre-market hours and then traded higher by more than 2% for the day.

Discover Financial Services reported earnings per share of $1.00, in line with analyst expectations. The payment and banking firm also effectively met analyst revenue expectations, reporting second quarter revenues of $1.8 billion. These earnings per share results declined around 8.3% from Q2 2011, while revenues increased near 5.7%. David Helms, Discover's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said in a statement, "Our results this quarter reflect outstanding fundamental performance in both of our business segments and continued improvement in credit performance.” Following Discover's earnings release, shares of the company opened lower by around 1%. They then recovered within minutes, trading more than 2% higher for the day.