S&P 500 (NYSE:SPY) component Cincinnati Financial Corporation (NASDAQ:CINF) reported net income above Wall Street’s expectations for the fourth quarter. Cincinnati Financial markets property casualty insurance.

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Cincinnati Financial Earnings Cheat Sheet for the Fourth Quarter

Results: Net income for the property and casualty insurance company rose to $134 million (83 cents per share) vs. $126 million (77 cents per share) in the same quarter a year earlier. This marks a rise of 6.3% from the year earlier quarter.

Revenue: Rose 2% to $955 million from the year earlier quarter.

Actual vs. Wall St. Expectations: Cincinnati Financial Corporation beat the mean analyst estimate of 57 cents per share. Analysts were expecting revenue of $952.6 million.

Quoting Management: Steven J. Johnston, president and chief executive officer, commented, “Fourth-quarter underwriting profits from our main business, property casualty insurance operations, rose to $98 million before taxes, the first underwriting profit for any 2011 quarter and our best result for any quarter since 2007. Strong fourth-quarter results reflected better core underwriting as well as our recently reported favorable impacts from lower catastrophe loss estimates, improving pricing trends for commercial insurance and higher securities valuations in our investment portfolio.”

Key Stats:

The company beat estimates last quarter after being in line with expectations in the third quarter with net income of 13 cents per share.

Revenue rose last quarter after seeing a drop the quarter before. Revenue fell 11.9% to $944 million in the third quarter from the year earlier.

Looking Forward: Expectations for the company’s next quarter results are lower than they have been. Over the past sixty days, the average estimate for first quarter of the next fiscal year has fallen from 40 cents per share to 39 cents. For the fiscal year, the average estimate has moved up from 33 cents a share to 46 cents over the last ninety days.

(Company fundamentals provided by Xignite Financials. Earnings estimates provided by Zacks)

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To contact the reporter on this story: Derek Hoffman at staff.writers@wallstcheatsheet.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Damien Hoffman at editors@wallstcheatsheet.com

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