Cintas Quarterly Earnings Preview $CTAS
Cintas Corporation (NASDAQ:CTAS) is anticipated to report earnings after the closing bell on December 20, 2011.
CTAS trades an average of 1 million shares per day.
52 Week High: $34.54
52 Week Low: $26.39
Book Value: $16.30
Float Short: 4.76%
On average, 11 analysts are expecting a drop of $-0.04 in earnings per share compared to last quarter's results of $0.52. The number to beat is $0.48 per share , based on the estimated mean earnings. Analyst estimates range between $0.46 and $0.49 per share.
The current trailing twelve months (ttm) P/E ratio is 16.7. The forward P/E ratio is 14.7.
Investors have been rewarded with an increase of year-over-year revenue. Revenue reported was $3.81 billion for 2011 vs. $3.55 billion for 2010. The bottom line has rising earnings year-over-year of $246.99 million for 2011 vs. $215.62 million for 2010.The company's earnings before interest and taxes are rising with an EBIT year-over-year of $440.34 million for 2011 vs. $390.81 million for 2010.Rising revenue along with rising earnings is a very good sign and what we want to see with our companies. Be sure to check the margins to make sure that the bottom line is keeping up with the top line.
Here is a look at the fiscal year revenue. 
Gross reported revenue compared to the mean estimate (rounded).
| Fiscal Quarter Ending Month-Year | Revenue Estimates | Actual | $ Difference | Difference % |
| Aug-11 | $ 968.49 M | $ 1.02 B | $ 48.69 M | 5.03% |
| May-11 | $ 967.49 M | $ 1.01 B | $ 44.60 M | 4.61% |
| Feb-11 | $ 907.56 M | $ 937.83 M | $ 30.27 M | 3.34% |
| Nov-10 | $ 916.13 M | $ 936.57 M | $ 20.44 M | 2.23% |
| Aug-10 | $ 913.43 M | $ 923.90 M | $ 10.47 M | 1.15% |
M = millions, B = billions
Differences are rounded. (Some onetime items are often excluded in reported EPS) 
Reported earnings per share compared to the mean estimate. Differences are rounded.
The total short interest number of shares for CTAS 
The number of days to cover short interest based on average daily trading volume for CTAS. 
Thank you for reading my article. Please also feel free to share your thoughts and comments.
I use a proprietary blend of technical analysis, financial crowd behavior, and fundamentals in my short-term trades, and while not totally the same in longer swing trades to investments, the concepts used are similar. You may want to use this article as a starting point of your own research with your financial planner. I use Seeking Alpha, Edgar Online, and Yahoo Finance for most of my data. I use the "confirmed" symbols from earnings.com that I believe to be of the most interest.
