AMCOL International Earnings Preview

AMCOL International (NYSE: ACO  ) beat estimates by $0.15 last quarter and investors are hoping it can beat them again. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Friday, July 22. AMCOL International is a global, specialty minerals company and provides a diverse group of industrial and consumer product lines.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts generally think investors should hang on to AMCOL International, with half rating the stock a hold. Analysts haven't adjusted their rating of AMCOL International for the past three months.
• Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $256.2 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 16.1% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.56 per share. Estimates range from $0.52 to $0.58.

What our community says:
CAPS All Stars are solidly behind the stock, with 97.2% granting it an "outperform" rating. The community at large concurs with the All Stars with 94.2% assigning it a rating of "outperform." Fools are bullish on AMCOL International, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 44 posts in the past 30 days. AMCOL International has a bullish CAPS rating of five out of five stars that is about on par with the Fool community assessment.

Management:
AMCOL International's profit has risen year over year by an average of 28.1%.

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	26.1%	23.7%	25.1%	27.5%
Operating Margin	8.3%	5.1%	9.6%	10.8%
Net Margin	5.5%	(4.2%)	7.5%	7.3%

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

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