General Electric Company (NYSE: GE) is set to report its third quarter earnings before the market opens on Friday. While creating an earnings preview in the midst of a sell-off is less important than others, investors should realize that GE has held up over the last few days better than many peers and big companies have been doing. Does this mean maybe that GE will have good earnings? Maybe, but we won’t know until Friday for sure.
Thomson Reuters has consensus estimates for General Electric’s earnings of $0.37 in earnings per share and $36.79 billion in revenue. The third quarter from the previous year reported earnings of $0.36 in earnings per share and $35.72 billion in revenue. The fourth quarter has consensus estimates of $0.57 in earnings per share and $41.56 billion in revenue.
General Electric also made moves this quarter to acquire the world’s largest helicopter-leasing company, by fleet value, for $1.775 billion. The helicopters are generally leased to fly workers and supplies to oil platforms, emergency medical services, and search and rescue. The transaction should be completed in 2015. Still, this is after reaching a deal to sell GE Appliances and on the exit of consumer finance as such a large piece of the pie.
Shares of General Electric have dropped approximately 1.7% over the course of the third quarter to close it out at $25.62 from the open of $26.06. However, in the days between the close of the quarter and the earnings report, shares have fallen roughly 6.5% to Monday’s close of $23.95. The range for the quarter was $24.75 to $27.15.
On Wednesday, shares of General Electric fell 1% to $23.86 from its previous close $21.10 as the broad markets fell in tandem.
The company’s stock has a consensus analyst price target of $29.27 and a 52-week range of $23.90 to $28.09. It has a market cap of $243 billion.
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