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Morgan Stanley, the best-performing stock this year among the five largest Wall Street banks, reported profit that beat estimates on a smaller drop in fixed-income trading revenue than analysts projected.

Second-quarter net income rose to $1.94 billion, or 94 cents a share, from $980 million, or 41 cents, a year earlier, the New York-based company said today in a statement. Excluding an accounting adjustment tied to the firm’s own debt and a tax benefit, profit was 60 cents a share, topping the 56-cent average estimate of 24 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

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I've always run across "estimate of something" rather than "estimate on something". Does on here mean based on? Any other alternative prepositions could be used here?

And can I say "greater than the averaged 56-cent estimate" or "greater than the averaged estimate at 56-cent" in place of that part in bold?

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An estimate of X means that the estimated value = X.

In your first sentence, on heads a preposition phrase which modifies beat. It means that the smaller-than-projected drop was the cause of profits beating the before-the-fact estimate.

You first paraphrase is accurate: the average estimate was $0.56, and profit, at $0.60 was greater than that. Your second, however, is not: X was greater than Y at Z is understood to mean that X=Z, not Y=Z.

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  • I see. Z could be regarded as a subject complement by default, not a postpositional attributive. In the original example, could '56-cent' and 'average' swap positions?
    – Kinzle B
    Commented Jul 17, 2014 at 17:46
  • @Zhanlong Yes: "topping the average 56-cent estimate" would not be misunderstood. But the author's way is better, because it is the average estimate which is 56 cents, not just the estimate
    – StoneyB on hiatus
    Commented Jul 17, 2014 at 17:49
  • That particular usage of 'on' is new to me; I checked dictionaries bu couldn't find any related explanations. Is this usage restricted to any verbs or nouns?
    – Kinzle B
    Commented Jul 18, 2014 at 0:51
  • @Zhanlongzheng It's typically used with achievement verbs -win, lose, succeed, score- and marks actions that bring about the change of state. It's very frequent in competitive situations, particularly athletics. "In the World Cup final, Germany beat Argentina on a beautiful goal by Mario Götze".
    – StoneyB on hiatus
    Commented Jul 18, 2014 at 2:02
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The reference is to estimates of profits. That is, profits for Morgan Stanley were estimated at 56 cents a share, but today's "actuals" (actual [ly reported result] s) of 60 cents a share (adjusted) beat that number.

Another way of saying it is 56 cents a share was Wall Streets "profit estimate" for Morgan Stanley.

In this construction, estimate is the noun and profit is a noun being used as an adjective.

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