American Express Takes Hit in First Quarter

As the novel coronavirus continues to wend its way through communities across the globe and economies remain shut down, many companies are seeing a larger than anticipated shock to their businesses. One of them is American Express (NYSE: AXP), which reported lower-than-expected first-quarter revenue and earnings Friday due to the coronavirus fallout.

In the company's update to shareholders in March, it anticipated a 2% to 4% revenue increase due to COVID-19 after 10 quarters with revenue growth of 8% or higher. Actual revenue for the first quarter came in at $10.3 billion, a 1% decrease. Earnings were $367 million, or $0.41 per share, compared with $1.80 per share for the first quarter of 2019. Adjusted earnings were $1.98, which takes into account $1.7 billion of credit reserve builds.

Image source: American Express.

Source Fool.com