Earnings Preview for Berkshire Hills Bancorp

Berkshire Hills Bancorp BHLB announces its next round of earnings this Monday, October 26. Here is Benzinga's everything-that-matters guide for this Monday's Q3 earnings announcement.

Net Income, Earnings, And Earnings Per Share

Earnings and EPS are useful metrics of profitability. Total earnings also known as net income is equal to total revenue minus total expenses. Dividing net income by the total number of shares outstanding yields EPS.

Earnings And Revenue

Berkshire Hills Bancorp's per-share loss will be near $0.08 on sales of $79.55 million, according to Wall Street analysts. Berkshire Hills Bancorp EPS in the same period a year ago totaled $0.46. Revenue was $96.87 million.

Why Analyst Estimates And Earnings Surprises Are Important

Wall Street analysts who study this company will publish analyst estimates of revenue and EPS. The averages of all analyst EPS and revenue estimates are called the "consensus estimates"; these consensus estimates can have a significant effect on a company's performance during an earnings release. When a company posts earnings or revenue above or below a consensus estimate, it has posted an "earnings surprise", which can really move a stock depending on the difference between actual and estimated values.

The analyst consensus estimate would represent a 117.39% decrease in the company's earnings. Sales would be down 17.88% from the same quarter last year. The company's reported EPS has stacked up against analyst estimates in the past like this:

Stock Performance

Shares of Berkshire Hills Bancorp were trading at $11.79 as of October 22. Over the last 52-week period, shares are down 61.01%. Given that these returns are generally negative, long-term shareholders are probably down going into this earnings release.

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