Arkansas Best Earnings Preview

Investors never know what to expect for Arkansas Best (Nasdaq: ABFS  ) , as it has wavered between topping and missing analysts estimates during the past fiscal year. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Monday. Arkansas Best is a holding company through its subsidiaries is engaged in motor carrier transportation operations.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold? Analysts are bullish on Arkansas Best; six analysts rate it as a buy and only three analysts rate it as a sell. Analysts like Arkansas Best better than competitor YRC Worldwide overall. Analysts still rate the stock a hold, but they are a bit more wary about it compared to three months ago.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $484 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 17.7% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of one cent per share. Estimates range from a loss of 27 cents to a profit of 13 cents.

What our community says:
CAPS All Stars are solidly backing the stock with 84.8% assigning it an "outperform" rating. The community at large backs the All Stars with 85.7% awarding it a rating of "outperform." Fools have embraced Arkansas Best, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 55 posts in the past 30 days. Arkansas Best's bearish CAPS rating of two out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

Management:
Arkansas Best's income has fallen year over year by an average of 68.7%. The company's gross margin shrank by nine percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 20.9% while cost of sales rose 61.9% to $153.8 million from a year earlier.

Now let's look at how efficient management is at running the business. Traditionally, margins represent the efficiency with which companies capture portions of sales dollars. The following table shows gross, operating, and net margins over the past four quarters.

Quarter	Q1	Q4	Q3	Q2
Gross Margin	64.6%	-133.1%	66.1%	66%
Operating Margin	-4.7%	27.7%	-0.4%	-2.7%
Net Margin	-2.9%	-0.7%	-0.2%	-1.8%

One final thing: If you want to keep tabs on Arkansas Best movements, and for more analysis on the company, make sure you add it to your Watchlist.

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