Before the call: Alcoa Q4 earnings expectations

Alcoa Inc. (NYSE: AA) is scheduled to release fourth-quarter 2008 results today at 5 PM Eastern. Results will be presented by Klaus Kleinfeld, president and chief executive officer, and Chuck McLane, executive vice president and chief financial officer. To listen in, dial (from U.S.) 1-800-901-5226, passcode: ALCOA. For information on dialing in from overseas, listening to the replay, or watching the webcast, see Alcoa's Quarterly Earnings Presentations.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect that Alcoa will have swung to its first quarterly loss in years: $0.10 per share. That compares to a profit of $0.36 per share in the same period of the previous year. Revenues for the quarter are expected to have fallen 28.8% from a year ago to $5.3 billion. Alcoa missed earnings estimates in three of the past five quarters, by 25.4% in the third quarter.

For the full year, analysts are looking for earnings of $1.40 per share on revenue of $27.6 billion, down from $2.60 per share and $30.8 billion in the previous year.

The consensus recommendation of analysts shifted from buy to hold AA during the past quarter. Though the share price has been climbing in recent weeks, it is about 65.6% lower than it was a year ago.

See BloggingStocks' Alcoa coverage for more information concerning the Pittsburgh-based producer of aluminum and alumina.

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