Harte-Hanks Earnings Preview

Harte-Hanks (NYSE: HHS  ) 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 on Thursday, July 28. Harte-Hanks is a direct and targeted marketing company that provides direct marketing services and shopper advertising opportunities to a range of local, regional, national and international consumer and business-to-business marketers.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on Harte-Hanks with three of four analysts rating it hold. Analysts don't like Harte-Hanks as much as competitor ValueClick overall. Seven out of 16 analysts rate ValueClick a buy compared to one of four for Harte-Hanks. Analysts still rate the stock a Hold, but they are a bit more wary about it compared to three months ago.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $209 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 0.7% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.17 per share. Estimates range from $0.16 to $0.18.

What our community says:
CAPS All Stars are solidly backing the stock with 83.3% granting it an "outperform" rating. The community at large backs the All Stars with 79.4% assigning it a rating of "outperform." Fools are keen on Harte-Hanks, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 28 posts in the past 30 days. Harte-Hanks' bearish CAPS rating of two out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

Management:
Harte-Hanks' income has fallen year over year by an average of 2.4%. Revenue has now gone up for three straight 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 gross, operating, and net margins over the past four quarters.

Quarter	Q1	Q4	Q3	Q2
Gross Margin	61.9%	61.6%	62.6%	62.2%
Operating Margin	7.1%	10.6%	11.6%	10.9%
Net Margin	4%	6.6%	6.4%	6.5%

For all our Harte-Hanks-specific analysis, including earnings and beyond, add Harte-Hanks to My Watchlist.

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