Earnings Preview for Select Medical Holdings

On Thursday, February 25, Select Medical Holdings SEM will release its latest earnings report. Here is Benzinga's outlook for the company.

What Are Earnings, Net Income, 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 Select Medical Holdings's EPS to be near $0.31 on sales of $1.41 billion. In the same quarter last year, Select Medical Holdings posted EPS of $0.31 on sales of $1.38 billion.

What Are Analyst Estimates And Earnings Surprises, And Why Do They Matter?

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 0% decrease in the company's earnings. Sales would be up 2.55% from the year-ago period. In comparison to analyst estimates in the past, here is how the company's reported EPS stacks up:

Stock Performance

Shares of Select Medical Holdings were trading at $26.79 as of February 23. Over the last 52-week period, shares are up 11.71%. Given that these returns are generally positive, long-term shareholders should be content going into this earnings release.

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