Jefferies Financial’s Review Following Q1 Earnings Announcement

Jefferies Financial Group (NYSE:JEF) released its Q1 earnings last week, reporting an EPS of $0.54, which came in better than the Street estimate of $0.48. Revenue was $1.28 billion, compared to the Street estimate of $1.14 billion.

The results were coupled with a higher-than-expected comp rate but the net of the two still drove a bottom-line beat. According to the analysts at Oppenheimer, this is not alarming as the generally higher-margined DCM and ECM activity are especially challenged in this environment, though advisory fared slightly better than expected versus Dealogic estimates.

This is likely attributable to more opaque private markets or restructuring activity contributions, but the company's larger share of activity driven by high yield and its JVs' exposure to leverages loans (JFIN) and commercial real estate (Berkadia) are all facing headwinds across the board.