Belden Earnings Preview

Belden (NYSE: BDC  ) will try to beat its earnings estimates for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings tomorrow. Belden designs, manufactures, and markets signal transmission solutions, including cable, connectivity, and active components for mission-critical applications in markets ranging from industrial automation to data centers, broadcast studios, and aerospace.

What analysts say

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts are very bullish on this stock, unanimously backing it as a buy. Analysts like Belden better than competitor ADTRAN overall. Fourteen out of 18 analysts rate ADTRAN a buy compared to six of six for Belden. Analysts haven't adjusted their rating of Belden for the past three months.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $514.1 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 22.2% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.60 per share. Estimates range from $0.57 to $0.63.

What our community says
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 96.7% giving it an outperform rating. The community at large agrees with the All-Stars with 95.1% awarding it a rating of outperform. Fools have embraced Belden, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 40 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of Belden, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management
Belden's income has fallen year over year by an average of more than twofold.

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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