Alcoa (AA) to open lower following weak earnings

The current earnings season officially got under way last night as Alcoa (NYSE: AA), the first DOW stock to report, released its third quarter numbers, and the results were not too pretty.

Going into last night's earnings release, analysts had been expecting Alcoa to earn 53 cents per share in its third quarter, but the company reported much lower actual numbers -- 33 cents per share for the quarter, or $268 million. Weak demand, coupled with falling aluminum prices were the main culprits during the quarter.

During the same period last year, the company showed earnings of 63 cents per share, or $555 million.

Since hitting an all time high in July, aluminum prices have been pulling back sharply over the past few months, and have dipped around 32% from the highs set over the summer.

The company also announced that it would be trying to preserve its cash by suspending its stock buyback plan. Previously, the company had approved a 25% buyback of its outstanding stock, and had already purchased 12%, but will stop the buying for the time being.

Shares of the company are trading down a little over 3% this morning in the premarket.

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last four years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer.