McDermott (MDR, $9.44) drops -6%, on unexpected loss in Q4

McDermott International Inc. reported fourth quarter earnings, which fell heavily short of analysts’ expectations. McDermott stock tumbled more than -6% in pre-market trading Monday.

The offshore oil & gas-focused engineering and construction company’s adjusted loss per share of -$1.55 in the fourth quarter was way below Wall Street's earnings estimate of +17 cents per share. At $2.07 billion, the company’s quarterly revenue missed analysts’ estimate of $2.64 billion.

David Dickson, president and chief executive officer of McDermott, attributed the company's fourth quarter results to significant non-recurring charges, including a $2.2 billion goodwill impairment charge. Other factors cited are changes in estimates on the Calpine gas turbine project, the previously announced change in estimate related to the Cameron LNG project, and an unfavorable change in estimate related to the damages from Hurricane Harvey on the Freeport LNG project.

However for the full year 2019, McDermott predicts its adjusted earnings to be in the range of $1.65 to $1.75 per share, which is above analysts’ consensus estimate of $1.47 per share. The company expects revenue for the year to range between $9.5 billion and$10.5 billion, close to analysts’ expectation of $9.76 billion.

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Sergey Savastiouk|Expert

Sergey Savastiouk, Ph.D. has a degree in Applied Mathematics from Moscow University and has extensive experience as an entrepreneur, investor, manager, and mathematician. His professional expertise is in applied mathematics, mathematical modeling, system and pattern analysis, and software and hardware system integration. He has served as the CEO of several hi-tech start-up companies and nonprofit organizations, which has given him proven capabilities in business strategy for high-tech start-up companies, market assessment, company formation, team building, product development, marketing, and sales. He has published numerous articles in journals and magazines on related fields. As a retail investor, he spent 15 years developing his proprietary trading and quantitative algorithms (now Tickeron’s A.I.), which brought him significant returns in trading the stock market. His current work and goal in founding Tickeron is to bring professional, sophisticated stock market analysis capabilities to retail investors via an easy-to-use interface.