Earnings Preview for Genworth Financial

Genworth Financial GNW releases its next round of earnings this Tuesday, February 16. Get the latest predictions in Benzinga's essential guide to the company'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

Wall Street expects EPS of $0.22 and sales around $2.06 billion. In the same quarter last year, Genworth Financial announced EPS of $0.05 on revenue of $2.04 billion.

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 Wall Street consensus estimate for earnings would represent a 340.0% increase for the company. Sales would be up 1.08% from the year-ago period. The company's reported EPS has stacked up against analyst estimates in the past like this:

Stock Performance

Shares of Genworth Financial were trading at $4.12 as of February 11. Over the last 52-week period, shares are down 5.73%. Given that these returns are generally negative, long-term shareholders are likely unhappy going into this earnings release.

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