Arch Coal Inc (ACI) Earnings Report Preview For Friday's Release
Arch Coal Inc (NYSE:ACI) is expected to report earnings for last fiscal quarter before the opening bell on February 10, 2012.
Who They Are:
Arch Coal, Inc. The company was founded in 1969 and is headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Arch Coal Inc trades an average of 8.1 million shares per day and has a marketcap of $3.2 Billion.
52 Week High: $36.99
52 Week Low: $13.09
Book Value: $16.70
Float Short: 5.84%
What To Expect:
Analysts are expecting an improvement of $0.23 in earnings per share compared to last quarter's results of $0.08. The number to beat is $0.31 per share based on the estimated mean earnings.
Analyst estimates range between $0.22 and $0.48 per share.
Here is a look at the fiscal year revenue for Arch Coal Inc. 
Recent Stock and Valuation Performance:
The P/E ratio has come down, as the current trailing twelve months P/E ratio is 12.6, while the forward P/E ratio is now 7.71.
From a month ago, the stock has increased in price 2.95%, with a one year change of -53.10%.
The stock is performing a little better than the overall market with a slight relative gain. When comparing to the S&P 500, the year to date difference is 1.28%.
Revenue year-over-year has increased to $3.19 billion for 2010 vs. $2.58 billion for 2009. The bottom line has rising earnings year-over-year of $158.86 million for 2010 vs. $42.17 million for 2009.The company's earnings before interest and taxes are rising with an EBIT year-over-year of $323.98 million for 2010 vs. $123.71 million for 2009. 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 in the earnings release to make sure the bottom line is keeping up with the top line.
Here is the last few quarters to get an idea how well they perform compared to estimates 
Reported earnings per share compared to the mean estimate. Differences are rounded.
Paid2Trade uses information believed to be correct, but is not guaranteed and is not independently checked for accuracy You may wish to use this article as a starting point of your own research with your financial planner.
