Earnings Preview: Cimpress

On Wednesday, January 27, Cimpress CMPR will release its latest earnings report. Decipher the announcement with Benzinga's help.

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

Sell-side analysts expect Cimpress's EPS to be near $2.82 on sales of $767.00 million. In the same quarter last year, Cimpress reported EPS of $2.73 on revenue of $820.33 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 3.3% increase in the company's earnings. Sales would be down 6.5% from the year-ago period. Cimpress's reported EPS has stacked up against analyst estimates in the past like this:

Stock Performance

Shares of Cimpress were trading at $97.46 as of January 25. Over the last 52-week period, shares are down 10.76%. Given that these returns are generally negative, long-term shareholders are probably upset going into this earnings release.

Do not be surprised to see the stock move on comments made during its conference call. Cimpress is scheduled to hold the call at 16:05:00 ET and can be accessed here.