A Preview Of Qiagen's Earnings

Qiagen QGEN releases its next round of earnings this Tuesday, February 09. Here is Benzinga's essential guide to Qiagen's Q4 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 covering Qiagen modeled for quarterly EPS of $0.65 on revenue of $548.86 million. Qiagen reported a profit of $0.48 per share when it published results during the same quarter last year. Sales in that period totaled $413.47 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 35.42% increase in the company's EPS figure. Sales would be up 32.74% on a year-over-year basis. The company's reported EPS has stacked up against analyst estimates in the past like this:

Stock Performance

Over the last 52-week period, shares are up 51.54%. Given that these returns are generally positive, long-term shareholders can be content going into this earnings release.

Do not be surprised to see the stock move on comments made during its conference call. Qiagen is scheduled to hold the call at 09:00:00 ET and can be accessed here.