Excluding special items amounting to 29 cents, the company had a profit of 10 cents per share, which was the consensus of Wall Street analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S, even though they expected $5.238 billion in revenue.
The stock market quarterly earning season is officially here. Alcoa is the first to report and is usually considered a bellweather company.
Alcoa lost money, but had some one time write downs (including the Obamacare "tax" hike). Excluding the write offs, they made a small profit. However, revenue was about 8% below expectations, and production capacity is not what was expected.
Alcoa can remain quasi-profitable, but is not able to grow much this quarter.