Third-quarter season kicks off amid strong aluminum demand Alcoa Inc. is no longer a member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, but its quarterly earnings scheduled for release after the bell on Wednesday are still widely viewed as the unofficial start of the season. Investors will be waiting to hear how much the company is benefiting from the current boom in demand for aluminum from the automotive and aerospace sectors. Just last week, Ford Motor Company unveiled plans for an array of new products, including an aluminum-bodied line of pickup trucks. They will also be eager to see if Alcoa AA, -0.25% has continued to enjoy the margin improvement reported in the second quarter. The company has worked to shed low-margin operations and shift its reliance on “upstream” commodity operations—which are hostage to movements in global metals prices—toward “downstream” products and manufacturing. In the second quarter, analysts welcomed wider margins at the company’s engineered products & services segment, and its push into aerospace following the $2.85 billion acquisition of jet engine parts maker Firth Rixson in the first quarter. The company in early September signed a multiyear $1 billion contractto supply Boeing with aluminum sheet and plate products for its commercial jetliners. Here are some other things to watch for: Earnings: Alcoa is expected to report third-quarter earnings of 22 cents a share, according to the average estimate of analysts polled by FactSet, double the 11 cents a share reported in the year-earlier period. Revenue: Those same analysts are expecting revenue of $5.828 billion, up from $5.643 billion a year ago. Share price: Alcoa shares have had a strong year so far, rising 50% to far outperform the S&P 500’s 6.3% gain. The shares are up more than 90% since the company was ousted from the Dow on Sept. 23, 2013, and are up 8% since the end of the second quarter. Other issues: Analysts at Sterne Agee said a recent pullback in aluminum prices on the London Metal Exchange on concerns about Chinese markets and global growth, are distracting from Alcoa’s strong fundamental story. “We continue to believe Alcoa’s value-added businesses in engineered products & services (EP&S) and global rolled products (GRP), which will account for +50% of after tax operating income (ATOI), remain underappreciated,” they wrote in a note Friday. Alcoa is still executing on the fundamental themes that support Sterne Agee’s $18 price target, said the note. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-to-expect-from-alcoas-...