Alcoa Beats on Both Top and Bottom Lines

Seth Jayson, The Motley Fool
Updated

Alcoa (NYS: AA) reported earnings yesterday. Here are the numbers you need to know.

The 10-second takeaway
For the quarter ended March 31 (Q1), Alcoa beat expectations on revenues and beat expectations on earnings per share.

Compared to the prior-year quarter, revenue increased slightly and GAAP earnings per share contracted significantly. The non-GAAP profit was a surprise, as analysts had predicted a loss.


Margins dropped across the board.

Revenue details
Alcoa booked revenue of $6.01 billion. The 12 analysts polled by S&P Capital IQ looked for revenue of $5.77 billion on the same basis. GAAP reported sales were 0.8% higher than the prior-year quarter's $5.96 billion.

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Source: S&P Capital IQ. Quarterly periods. Dollar amounts in millions. Non-GAAP figures may vary to maintain comparability with estimates.

EPS details
Non-GAAP EPS came in at $0.10. The 16 earnings estimates compiled by S&P Capital IQ averaged -$0.05 per share on the same basis. GAAP EPS of $0.09 for Q1 were 67% lower than the prior-year quarter's $0.27 per share.

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Source: S&P Capital IQ. Quarterly periods. Non-GAAP figures may vary to maintain comparability with estimates.

Margin details
For the quarter, gross margin was 15.1%, 580 basis points worse than the prior-year quarter. Operating margin was 4.2%, 580 basis points worse than the prior-year quarter. Net margin was 1.6%, 360 basis points worse than the prior-year quarter.

Looking ahead
Next quarter's average estimate for revenue is $6.09 billion. On the bottom line, the average EPS estimate is $0.11.

Next year's average estimate for revenue is $24.37 billion. The average EPS estimate is $0.53.

Investor sentiment
The stock has a four-star rating (out of five) at Motley Fool CAPS, with 3,375 members out of 3,612 rating the stock outperform, and 238 members rating it underperform. Among 757 CAPS All-Star picks (recommendations by the highest-ranked CAPS members), 715 give Alcoa a green thumbs-up, and 42 give it a red thumbs-down.

Of Wall Street recommendations tracked by S&P Capital IQ, the average opinion on Alcoa is hold, with an average price target of $12.07.

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At the time thisarticle was published Seth Jayson had no position in any company mentioned here at the time of publication. You can view his stock holdings here. He is co-advisor ofMotley Fool Hidden Gems, which provides new small-cap ideas every month, backed by a real-money portfolio. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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