Oshkosh Earnings Preview

Oshkosh (NYSE: OSK  ) will try to beat its earnings estimates for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday, July 28. Oshkosh, along with its subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, and markets a range of specialty vehicles and vehicle bodies including defense trucks, access equipment, fire and emergency vehicles, and concrete mixers and refuse collection vehicles.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts generally think investors should hang on to Oshkosh, with half rating the stock a hold. Analysts like Oshkosh better than competitor Terex overall. Seven out of 20 analysts rate Terex a buy compared to seven of 14 for Oshkosh.
• Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $1.89 billion in revenue this quarter. That would represent a decline of 22.5% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of 72 cents per share. Estimates range from 54 cents to 91 cents.

What our community says:
CAPS All Stars are solidly backing the stock with 97% assigning it an "outperform" rating. The community at large agrees with the All Stars with 92.5% awarding it a rating of "outperform." Fools have embraced Oshkosh and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 355 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of Oshkosh, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:
Oshkosh's income has fallen year over year by an average of more than threefold. Revenue has fallen in the past two quarters. The company's gross margin shrank by 5.8 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue fell 39.1% while cost of sales fell 34.5% to $1.46 billion from a year earlier.

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.

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