Dime Community Bancshares Earnings Preview

Dime Community Bancshares (Nasdaq: DCOM  ) met its estimates last quarter, but investors hope it will beat them this quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings tomorrow. Dime Community Bancshares operates as the holding company for The Dime Savings Bank of Williamsburgh that provides financial services and loans mainly for multifamily housing in the United States.

What analysts say

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on Dime Community Bancshares with six of eight analysts rating it hold. Analysts like Dime Community Bancshares better than competitor Northfield Bancorp overall. Zero out of one analysts rate Northfield Bancorp a buy compared to two of eight for Dime Community Bancshares. Dime Community Bancshares' rating hasn't changed over the past three months.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $35.4 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 6.7% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.34 per share. Estimates range from $0.32 to $0.36.

What our community says
CAPS All-Stars are split on Dime, with 46.7% rating it an outperform and 53.3% giving it an underperform rating. The community is of two minds on the stock with 54.1% Fools giving it an outperform rating and 45.9% an underperform rating. Fools are skeptical of Dime Community Bancshares, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 23 posts in the past 30 days. Dime Community Bancshares' bearish CAPS rating of two out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

Management:
Dime Community Bancshares' profit has risen year over year by an average of 32.1%. Revenue has fallen in the past two 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 net margins over the past four quarters.

Quarter	Q1	Q4	Q3	Q2
Net Margin	20.1%	19.0%	20.2%	17.5%

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