Cardinal Health Earnings Preview

Cardinal Health CAH releases its next round of earnings this Friday, February 05. Here is Benzinga's essential guide to Cardinal Health's Q2 earnings report.

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

Analysts expect Cardinal Health earnings of $1.44 per share. Revenue will likely be around $41.44 billion, according to the consensus estimate. In the same quarter last year, Cardinal Health posted EPS of $1.52 on sales of $39.73 billion.

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 5.26% decrease in the company's earnings. Sales would be have grown 4.29% from the same quarter last year. In comparison to analyst estimates in the past, here is how the company's reported EPS stacks up:

Stock Performance

Shares of Cardinal Health were trading at $54.41 as of February 03. Over the last 52-week period, shares are down 6.37%. 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. Cardinal Health is scheduled to hold the call at 08:30:00 ET and can be accessed here.