Commodity Earnings on Tap: SLB, HAL, FCX

With Alcoa (AA) kicking off earnings season last week, investors will spend the next little while combing through quarterly statements from their favorite commodity firms. Alcoa reported a fourth quarter net loss of $2.3 billion and missed analysts’ EPS estimates. Agribusiness giant Monsanto Company (MON), however, managed to beat the Street’s estimates, posting an 8.6% increase in quarterly profits [for more commodity news and analysis subscribe to our free newsletter].

Next week, investors will once again see a handful of earnings from major commodity producers. It will be important to not only analyze the quarterly results, but also to pay close attention to each company’s 2014 outlook, as 2013 has been anything but kind to commodities.

• Schlumberger Ltd. (SLB): The firm is well-known for its drilling and oil production, as well as having a major presence in the fracking world. Schlumberger will release its earnings statement prior to market open Friday; analysts are expecting earnings to come in at $1.33 per share for the fourth quarter, while revenues are expected come in at $12.0 billion. Both figures are slightly higher than the previous quarter’s recordings.
• Halliburton (HAL): This oil and gas giant will report prior to the opening bell on Tuesday, and analysts will be expecting EPS of $0.89 and revenues of $7.6 billion. Halliburton vastly exceeded expectations in its last report and met or surpassed the four quarters prior to that, giving investors a fair sense of confidence going into Tuesday’s release [see Berkshire’s Latest Acquisition: Another Big Oil Bet].
• Freeport McMoran (FCX): This copper miner  is an investor favorite, with a market cap of over $37 billion. It should also be noted that while copper is its main output, the company has a fair amount of assets allocated towards gold, cobalt, silver, and others. The firm will report prior to the opening bell on Wednesday, and analysts will be looking for EPS of $0.81 and revenues of $2.66 billion.

The Bottom Line

As always, we caution investors to pay attention to the numbers as well as any commentary from the company. Strong numbers can be quickly negated by a poor outlook and vice versa. To properly anticipate a security’s reaction, be sure to take both parts of the equation into account.

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Disclosure: No positions at time of writing.