Alpha Natural Resources 3Q loss narrows, beats Wall Street's expectations

Alpha Natural Resources' third-quarter loss narrowed, helped by reduced costs.

The coal producer's performance topped analysts' estimates. Its stock rose more than 2 percent in Thursday premarket trading.

Alpha Natural Resources lost $185 million, or 84 cents per share, for the three months ended Sept. 30. That compares with a loss of $458.2 million, or $2.07 per share, a year ago.

Stripping out certain items, it lost 53 cents per share.

Analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research expected a bigger loss of 71 cents per share.

Total costs and expenses fell to $1.22 billion from $1.74 billion.

Revenue dropped 12 percent to $1.05 billion from $1.19 billion as coal revenue declined partly on lower shipments of metallurgical and Powder River Basin coal. The results still managed to beat the $989.7 million in revenue that analysts polled by Zacks forecast.

Shares of Alpha Natural Resources Inc. fell 9 cents, or 4.2 percent, to $2.05 in morning trading.

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Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights using data from Zacks Investment Research. ANR stock research report from Zacks.