American Express Met Estimates, Sort Of

American Express (AXP-NYSE) issued earnings mid-day today with $0.76 EPS and revenues of $7.2 Billion;
Estimates were $0.76 and $7.3 Billion.  There was a divergence on First Call estimates versus the Reuters estimates, so depending on how you look at it AXP met estimates or missed by a penny on Earnings Per Share and revenues were a tad under the mark.  But you have to consider the company and how it reports.

As you would guess, AXP shares whipped around by going positive for a second and then back into negative territory.  This is close enough that you would probably think that the analysts were unsure of the exact numbers because of differences in credit charge-offs and differences in analysts factoring out past businesses no longer inside the company.  Shares are currently down $0.35% at $57.87.  Its 52-week trading range is $49.73 to $62.50.

This name often gets whips in its stock after reporting earnings, but now that they have jettisoned the Ameriprise (AMP-NYSE) unit the stock is viewed as more of a standalone company.  You do have Mastercard (MA-NYSE) that can be affected and soon you’ll have Visa as its own operating public company, but American Express just doesn’t usually spill over into banking and lending institutions.  The street may ultimately say this was a net miss but it really feel in line on an acceptable range if you look at how the stock usually reacts to earnings.

Jon C. Ogg
January 22, 2007