RIVERWOODS, Ill. (AP) _ Discover Financial Services (DFS) on Wednesday reported third-quarter net income of $771 million.

On a per-share basis, the Riverwoods, Illinois-based company said it had net income of $2.45.

The results surpassed Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of eight analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.63 per share.

The credit card issuer and lender posted revenue of $3.13 billion in the period. Its adjusted revenue was $2.71 billion, also exceeding Street forecasts. Six analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $2.64 billion.

Discover shares have dropped 29% since the beginning of the year, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index has increased slightly more than 6%. In the final minutes of trading on Wednesday, shares hit $60.60, a drop of 25% in the last 12 months.

This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on DFS at https://www.zacks.com/ap/DFS

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