Preview: AZZ's Earnings

AZZ AZZ announces its next round of earnings this Friday, July 09. Here is Benzinga's everything-that-matters guide for this Friday's Q1 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

Sell-side analysts expect AZZ's EPS to be near $0.62 on sales of $223.69 million. AZZ reported a per-share profit of $0.21 when it published results during the same quarter last year. Sales in that period totaled $213.29 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 195.24%. Sales would be have grown 4.87% from the same quarter last year. Here is how the AZZ's reported EPS has stacked up against analyst estimates in the past:

Stock Performance

Over the last 52-week period, shares are up 76.8%. 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. AZZ is scheduled to hold the call at 11:00:00 ET and can be accessed here.