A Preview Of MTS Systems's Earnings

MTS Systems MTSC announces its next round of earnings this Tuesday, December 15. Here is Benzinga's everything-that-matters guide for this Tuesday's Q4 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

Wall Street analysts see MTS Systems reporting earnings of $0.28 per share on revenue of $203.15 million. MTS Systems earnings in the same period a year ago was $0.37 per share. Quarterly sales came in at $224.08 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.

The analyst consensus estimate would represent a 24.32% decline in the company's EPS figure. Sales would have fallen 9.34% from the same quarter last year. MTS Systems's reported EPS has stacked up against analyst estimates in the past like this:

Stock Performance

Shares of MTS Systems were trading at $58.21 as of December 11. Over the last 52-week period, shares are up 22.94%. Given that these returns are generally positive, long-term shareholders should be satisfied going into this earnings release.

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