ArQule (Nasdaq: ARQL) will try to beat its earnings estimates for the fourth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings Monday. ArQule is a clinical-stage biotechnology company that is engaged in researching and developing innovative cancer therapeutics.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts are very bullish on this stock, unanimously backing it as a buy. While analysts still rate the stock a moderate buy, they are a little more optimistic about it compared with three months ago.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $6 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a decline of 15.6% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is a loss of $0.20 per share. Estimates range from a loss of $0.22 to a loss of $0.13.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 83.3% assigning it an "outperform" rating. The community at large concurs with the All-Stars with 89% giving it a rating of "outperform." Fools are bullish on ArQule, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 88 posts in the past 30 days. ArQule's bearish CAPS rating of two out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

Management:
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

100.0%

100.0%

100.0%

100.0%

Operating Margin

(11.4%)

(89.4%)

(77.1%)

(123.0%)

Net Margin

(10.9%)

(76.5%)

(77.3%)

(115.8%)

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