First American (NYSE: FAF) hasn't been able to establish an earnings trend, bouncing between beating and falling short of estimates during the past fiscal year. The company will unveil its latest earnings Thursday. First American provides financial services through its title insurance and services segment and its specialty insurance segment.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on First American with analysts unanimously rating it hold. Analysts' rating of First American has stayed constant from three months prior.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $891.3 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a decline of 8.1% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.24 per share. Estimates range from $0.21 to $0.28.

What our community says:
The majority of CAPS All-Stars see First American as a good bet, with 66.7% awarding it an "outperform" rating. The majority of the Fools are in agreement with the All-Stars as 76.2% give it an "outperform" rating. Fools are keen on First American, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 10 posts in the past 30 days. First American's bearish CAPS rating of two out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

Management:
Over the last four quarters, revenue has fallen an average of 17.6% year over year.

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

(1.6%)

4.6%

3.3%

3.5%

One final thing: If you want to keep tabs on First American movements, and for more analysis on the company, make sure you add it to your watchlist.

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Editor’s note: The original version of this article identified CoreLogic as a competitor of First American. We regret the error.