LifePoint Hospitals Earnings Preview

LifePoint Hospitals (Nasdaq: LPNT  ) will try to beat its earnings estimates for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings Friday. LifePoint Hospitals, through its subsidiaries, operates general acute care hospitals in non-urban U.S. communities.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts are bullish on LifePoint Hospitals, as 11 analysts rate it as a buy and only three analysts rate it as a sell. Analysts don't like LifePoint Hospitals as much as competitor HealthSouth overall. Analysts still rate the stock a hold, but they are a bit more wary about it compared with three months ago.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $878.4 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 11.1% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.75 per share. Estimates range from $0.71 to $0.79.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock, with 86.5% granting it an "outperform" rating. The community at large backs the All-Stars, with 82.7% awarding it a rating of "outperform." Fools are gung-ho about LifePoint Hospitals, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 30 posts in the past 30 days. LifePoint Hospitals' bearish CAPS rating of two out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

Management:
LifePoint Hospitals' profit has risen year over year by an average of 17.3%. 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	49%	47.5%	47.4%	47.4%
Operating Margin	8.4%	6.3%	6.6%	7.8%
Net Margin	5.2%	4.2%	4.7%	4.8%

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