Pinnacle Financial Partners Earnings Preview

Watch Pinnacle Financial Partners' (Nasdaq: PNFP  ) earnings report to see if it can beat analyst expectations for the third consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Tuesday. Pinnacle Financial Partners, through its wholly owned subsidiary, Pinnacle National Bank, provides a range of banking services in its main market areas of the Nashville-Davidson-Rutherford-Franklin, Tennessee and Knoxville.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold? Analysts think investors should stand pat on Pinnacle Financial Partners with 10 of 13 analysts rating it hold. Analysts don't like Pinnacle Financial Partners as much as competitor Renasant overall. Three out of 10 analysts rate Renasant a buy compared to two of 13 for Pinnacle Financial Partners. While analysts still rate the stock a Hold, they are a little more optimistic about it compared to three months ago.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $45.9 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a decline of 0.8% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of 11 cents per share. Estimates range from 5 cents to 20 cents.

What our community says:
CAPS All Stars are solidly backing the stock with 88.9% awarding it an "outperform" rating. The community at large agrees with the All Stars with 87.7% assigning it a rating of "outperform." Fools are keen on Pinnacle Financial Partners, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 24 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of Pinnacle Financial Partners, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:
Pinnacle Financial Partners' income has fallen year over year by an average of more than twofold.

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	6.3%	6.6%	3.5%	-42.9%

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