Earnings Preview: Cliffs Natural Resources (CLF)

Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. CLF is set to report earnings tonight, and Wall Street will be looking to see whether strength in commodity prices, particularly iron ore, has helped the company blow past Wall Street estimates. Wall Street analysts are looking for earnings of $2.25 per share on revenues of $1.40 billion, sharply higher than last year, when the company earned 55 cents per shares on revenues of $727.70 million. This is 92% revenue growth, exceptional for a company that's trading under 7 times earnings. The company sports a 0.6% dividend yield, and has a price to earnings growth ratio of 0.78, indicating that shares are not expensive at all. Competitors like Walter Energy WLT, Peabody Coal BTU, Alpha Natural Resources, Inc. ANR and others have reported strong earnings, backed by rising commodity costs, so this bodes well for Cliffs Natural Resources tonight. Cliffs Natural Resources Inc., a mining and natural resources company, produces iron ore pellets, lump and fines iron ore, and metallurgical coal. The company operates six iron ore mines in Michigan, Minnesota, and Eastern Canada.