Alcoa (NYSE: AA) got the earnings season under way last night by reported weaker than expected earnings, but the company was able to top Wall Street’s estimates for overall revenue.

For its first quarter the company showed that earnings were $0.37 EPS on $7.4 Billion in revenues. This fell short of the $0.48 EPS that analysts had been expecting, but it did surpass the $7.2 Billion revenue figure that Wall Street had been looking to see.

Alcoa was the first Dow 30 company to report earnings for the first quarter, and the company noted that its sales had dropped by a pretty heavy $6.7 million in the quarter, at $7.38 million, down from $7.91 million in the same period last year. Is this a trend that we will continue to see as the rest of the Dow components line up to report first quarter numbers? Time will tell, but it is definitely going to be a rough earnings period, and should give us a better idea of just how tough things really are out there.

Alcoa shares fell 4.0% in yesterday’s action, and following its earnings report the stock has dropped another 0.6% in extended hours trading.

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