Equifax Earnings: Six-Quarter Beat Streak on the Line at $2.20 EPS

Equifax releases results before the market opens on October 20, so traders who wait for the opening bell will already be reacting to numbers that have been public for hours.

The bar heading into this report is $2.20 in earnings per share, and the company has cleared that kind of hurdle six quarters in a row. A seventh consecutive beat would reinforce a pattern that has made Equifax one of the more consistent large-cap earners in the financial data sector.

The swing factor this quarter is the mortgage inquiry slowdown, since Equifax's revenue is tied to the volume of credit checks lenders run on home loan applications, and a soft mortgage market weighs directly on the top line.

Investors watching the report will want to see whether the $2.20 EPS consensus holds up against whatever mortgage-related headwinds materialized in the quarter. If the streak stays intact despite that drag, it signals that other business lines are carrying more weight than they did in previous cycles.