market overlooking earnings for now but soon enough it'll BITE hard..
from Bottarelli research
Alcoa (AA – NYSE)
By Bottarelli Research Published Tuesday, April 12, 2016 Alcoa AA – NYSE’s quarterly report is the semi-official starting gun for earnings season, so we thought it would be interesting to unpack the blue chip’s release and technical chart.
You might see some headlines touting AA’s “250% earnings beat.” As usual, this is a cheap fiction Wall Street created by lowering the bar just ahead of the announcement. AA’s actual numbers are really rather ugly.
AA’s posted revenue of $4.9 billion is a -5.4% sequential quarterly decline, a -15% quarterly decline year-over-year, and a -5.77% miss for the analysts. EPS of $0.07 after adjusting for special items is indeed a “250%” improvement over the analysts’ call for $0.02. It’s even a 75% improvement sequentially. But this is a seasonal business, so most honest analysts look to the year-over-year comparisons. And in this case, we’re looking at a -75% quarterly drop-off compared to the first quarter of 2015.
The best spin AA has managed to muster? They are cutting another 2,000 workers to reflect “continuing weakness in aluminum pricing.”