A Preview Of Volt Information Sciences's Earnings

On Tuesday, March 16, Volt Information Sciences VOLT will release its latest earnings report. Here is Benzinga's outlook for the company.

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 an EPS loss of $0.19 and sales around $210.50 million. Volt Information Sciences EPS in the same period a year ago totaled $0.45. Sales were $217.77 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 57.78% increase in the company's EPS figure. Sales would be down 3.34% from the year-ago period. Here is how the Volt Information Sciences's reported EPS has stacked up against analyst estimates in the past:

Stock Performance

Shares of Volt Information Sciences were trading at $3.17 as of March 12. Over the last 52-week period, shares are up 212.5%. Given that these returns are generally positive, long-term shareholders should be satisfied going into this earnings release.

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