General Electric Beats on Both Top and Bottom Lines

Seth Jayson, The Motley Fool
Updated

General Electric (NYS: GE) filed its 10-K on Feb. 26. Here are the numbers you need to know.

The 10-second takeaway
 For the quarter ended Dec. 31 (Q4), General Electric beat slightly on revenues and beat slightly on earnings per share.

Compared to the prior-year quarter, revenue grew. Non-GAAP earnings per share grew. GAAP earnings per share grew.


Gross margins expanded, operating margins increased, net margins dropped.

Revenue details
 General Electric booked revenue of $39.33 billion. The 11 analysts polled by S&P Capital IQ wanted to see revenue of $38.70 billion on the same basis. GAAP reported sales were 13% higher than the prior-year quarter's $34.17 billion.

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

EPS details
 EPS came in at $0.44. The 14 earnings estimates compiled by S&P Capital IQ forecast $0.43 per share. Non-GAAP EPS of $0.44 for Q4 were 13% higher than the prior-year quarter's $0.39 per share. (The prior-year quarter included -$0.02 per share in earnings from discontinued operations.) GAAP EPS of $0.38 for Q4 were 8.6% higher than the prior-year quarter's $0.35 per share. (The prior-year quarter included -$0.02 per share in earnings from discontinued operations.)

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 39.9%, 510 basis points better than the prior-year quarter. Operating margin was 13.4%, much better than the prior-year quarter. Net margin was 10.4%, 50 basis points worse than the prior-year quarter.

Looking ahead
 Next quarter's average estimate for revenue is $34.92 billion. On the bottom line, the average EPS estimate is $0.35.

Next year's average estimate for revenue is $148.90 billion. The average EPS estimate is $1.68.

Investor sentiment
 The stock has a four-star rating (out of five) at Motley Fool CAPS, with 15,476 members out of 16,519 rating the stock outperform, and 1,043 members rating it underperform. Among 3,135 CAPS All-Star picks (recommendations by the highest-ranked CAPS members), 2,989 give General Electric a green thumbs-up, and 146 give it a red thumbs-down.

Of Wall Street recommendations tracked by S&P Capital IQ, the average opinion on General Electric is outperform, with an average price target of $24.62.

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The article General Electric Beats on Both Top and Bottom Lines originally appeared on Fool.com.

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. The Motley Fool owns shares of General Electric Company. 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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