Preview: Fate Therapeutics's Earnings

On Wednesday, May 05, Fate Therapeutics FATE will release its latest earnings report. Benzinga's outlook for Fate Therapeutics is included in the following report.

Net Income, Earnings, And Earnings Per Share

Earnings and especially earnings per share (EPS) are useful measures of a company's profitability. Total earnings, which is also referred to as net income, equals total revenue minus total expenses. EPS equals to net income divided by the number of shares outstanding.

Earnings And Revenue

Fate Therapeutics's per-share loss will be near $0.43 on sales of $5.90 million, according to Wall Street analysts. Fate Therapeutics's loss in the same period a year ago was $0.44 per share. Quarterly sales came in at $2.52 million.

Why Analyst Estimates And Earnings Surprises Are Important

Wall Street analysts who study this company will publish analyst estimates of revenue and EPS. The averages of all analyst EPS and revenue estimates are called the "consensus estimates"; these consensus estimates can have a significant effect on a company's performance during an earnings release. When a company posts earnings or revenue above or below a consensus estimate, it has posted an "earnings surprise", which can really move a stock depending on the difference between actual and estimated values.

If the company were to match the consensus estimate, earnings would be up 2.27%. Sales would be have grown 134.59% from the same quarter last year. Fate Therapeutics's reported EPS has stacked up against analyst estimates in the past like this:

Stock Performance

Shares of Fate Therapeutics were trading at $85.11 as of May 03. Over the last 52-week period, shares are up 183.73%. 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. Fate Therapeutics is scheduled to hold the call at 17:00:00 ET and can be accessed here.