A Preview Of Caesars Entertainment's Earnings

Caesars Entertainment CZR announces its next round of earnings this Thursday, February 25. Here is Benzinga's everything-that-matters guide for this Thursday'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 Caesars Entertainment reporting a loss of $1.69 per share on revenue of $1.73 billion. In the same quarter last year, Caesars Entertainment reported a loss per share of $0.45 on revenue of $2.17 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.

If the company were to match the consensus estimate, earnings would be down 275.56%. Sales would be down 20.24% from the year-ago period. Caesars Entertainment'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 71.97%. Given that these returns are generally positive, long-term shareholders can relax going into this earnings release. Long-term shareholders are already enjoying 12-month gains prior to the announcement.

Do not be surprised to see the stock move on comments made during its conference call. Caesars Entertainment is scheduled to hold the call at 17:00:00 ET and can be accessed here.