East West Bancorp Earnings Preview

Investors hope East West Bancorp (Nasdaq: EWBC  ) will top analyst estimates once again after beating predictions by 40.03 in the previous quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Wednesday, July 20. East West Bancorp is a registered bank holding company that offers a full range of banking services to individuals and small to midsized businesses through East West Bank and its subsidiaries.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: The majority of analysts back East West Bancorp as a buy. But with 62.5% of analysts rating it a buy, East West Bancorp is still below the mean analyst rating of its nearest 10 competitors, which average 66.7% buys. Analysts like East West Bancorp better than competitor Cathay General Bancorp overall. One out of 13 analysts rates Cathay General Bancorp a buy, compared with 10 of 16 for East West Bancorp. Wall Street has warmed to the stock over the past three months, with analysts increasing their endorsement from hold to a moderate buy.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $198.3 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a decline of 2.6% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.37 per share. Estimates range from $0.35 to $0.40.

What our community says:
The majority of CAPS All-Stars see EWBC as a good bet, with 66.1% assigning it an "outperform" rating. The majority of Fools are in agreement with the All-Stars, as 66.5% give it an "outperform" rating. Fools are bullish on East West Bancorp, though the message boards have been quiet lately, with only 97 posts in the past 30 days. East West Bancorp's bearish CAPS rating of one out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

Management:
East West Bancorp's income has fallen year over year by an average of 65.3%. Revenue has fallen in the past two 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	19.8%	15.5%	17.9%	12%

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