Abaxis Earnings Preview

Abaxis (Nasdaq: ABAX  ) came in under analysts' estimates last quarter, but it has a chance to fix things this quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings  Thursday, July 28. Abaxis develops, manufactures, markets, and sells portable blood analysis systems for use in human or veterinary patient-care settings to provide clinicians with rapid blood constituent measurements.

What analysts say

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back Abaxis, with five of nine rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts like Abaxis better than competitor IDEXX Laboratories overall. While analysts still rate the stock a moderate buy, they are a little more optimistic about it compared to three months ago.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $38.5 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 10.2% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.16 per share. Estimates range from $0.13 to $0.20.

What our community says
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 95.7% assigning it an "outperform" rating. The community at large agrees with the All-Stars, with 90.5% awarding it a rating of "outperform." Fools are gung-ho about Abaxis, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 62 posts in the past 30 days. Even with a robust four out of five stars, Abaxis' CAPS rating falls a little short of the community's upbeat outlook.

Management
Abaxis' profit has risen year over year by an average of 13%.

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	Q4	Q3	Q2	Q1
Gross Margin	54.5%	55.2%	56.0%	56.6%
Operating Margin	14.1%	16.2%	15.3%	17.0%
Net Margin	9.0%	10.7%	10.6%	10.2%

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