Old Republic International Earnings Preview

If Old Republic International (NYSE: ORI  ) misses estimates again it will be the third consecutive quarter for the company. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Monday. Old Republic International is an insurance holding company, which is engaged in the single business of insurance underwriting. It conducts its business through regulated insurance company subsidiaries organized into three segments.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold? Analysts strongly back Old Republic International, with three of five rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts like Old Republic International better than competitor Fidelity National Financial overall. Old Republic International's rating hasn't changed over the past three months.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $1.12 billion in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 19.7% 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 2 cents to a profit of 6 cents.

What our community says:
The majority of CAPS All Stars see ORI as a good bet, with 65.1% awarding it an "outperform" rating. The majority of the Fools are in agreement with the All Stars as 73.8% give it an "outperform" rating. Fools have embraced Old Republic International, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 61 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of Old Republic International, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:
Old Republic International's income has fallen year over year by an average of more than threefold. Revenue has now gone up for three straight quarters.

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 net margins over the past four quarters.

Quarter	Q1	Q4	Q3	Q2
Net Margin	-1.1%	-1.1%	-3.9%	5.7%

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