Intersil Earnings Preview

Investors hope Intersil (Nasdaq: ISIL  ) will top analyst estimates once again after beating predictions by 7 cents in the previous quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Wednesday, July 27. Intersil designs, develops, manufactures and markets analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits for applications in the high-end consumer, industrial, communications and computing electronics markets.

What analysts say:
 

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on Intersil with 19 of 28 analysts rating it hold. Analysts don't like Intersil as much as competitor Fairchild Semiconductor International overall. Six out of 13 analysts rate Fairchild Semiconductor International a buy compared to seven of 28 for Intersil. 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 $208.3 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a decline of 5.3% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.17 per share. Estimates range from $0.13 to $0.18.

What our community says:
CAPS All Stars are solidly behind the stock with 95% granting it an "outperform" rating. The community at large agrees with the All Stars with 92.3% assigning it a rating of "outperform." Fools have embraced Intersil, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 55 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of Intersil, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:
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 gross, operating, and net margins over the past four quarters.

Quarter	Q1	Q4	Q3	Q2
Gross Margin	57.8%	58.8%	58.9%	58.3%
Operating Margin	10.5%	11.8%	17.5%	14%
Net Margin	7.1%	13.4%	14.6%	-27%

We can help you keep tabs on your companies with My Watchlist, our free, personalized service. Add Intersil now.

Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.