Discover Financial Services tops Street 4Q forecasts

RIVERWOODS, Ill. (AP) - Discover Financial Services (DFS) on Tuesday reported fourth-quarter net income of $563 million.

The Riverwoods, Illinois-based company said it had profit of $1.40 per share.

The results exceeded Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of 11 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.38 per share.

The credit card issuer and lender posted revenue of $2.72 billion in the period. Its adjusted revenue was $2.36 billion, also exceeding Street forecasts. Seven analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $1.8 billion.

For the year, the company reported profit of $2.39 billion, or $5.77 per share. Revenue was reported as $9.1 billion.

Discover shares have declined 3 percent since the beginning of the year, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index has risen nearly 2 percent. In the final minutes of trading on Tuesday, shares hit $69.88, a climb of 47 percent in the last 12 months.

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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on DFS at https://www.zacks.com/ap/DFS

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