** Shares in Ottobock OBCK.DE are up 4.7% in early Frankfurt trade after the German prosthetics maker's preliminary Q4 earnings came in above expectations
** Jefferies points to the company's Q4 underlying core earnings of 134.2 million euros ($158.8 million), noting they came in about 5% above a Vara consensus of 127.5 million
** It adds that the results are due to the strong growth and economies of scale of the Ottobock business model
** Up to the previous session's close, shares were down 11.3% YTD
($1 = 0.8449 euros)
(Reporting by Cian Muenster)
((Cian.Muenster@thomsonreuters.com))