MEDNAX Earnings Preview

MEDNAX (NYSE: MD  ) beat estimates by $0.03 last quarter, and investors are hoping it can beat them again. The company will unveil its latest earnings Tuesday. MEDNAX is a provider of physician services including newborn, maternal-fetal, pediatric subspecialty, and anesthesia care.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back MEDNAX, with 10 of 14 rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts like MEDNAX better than competitor Tenet Healthcare overall. 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 $394.6 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 13% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $1.15 per share. Estimates range from $1.12 to $1.18.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock with 98.7% granting it an "outperform" rating. The community at large concurs with the All-Stars with 97.7% assigning it a rating of "outperform." Fools have embraced MEDNAX, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 50 posts in the past 30 days. MEDNAX has a bullish CAPS rating of five out of five stars that is about on par with the Fool community assessment.

Management:
MEDNAX's profit has risen year over year by an average of 16.8%. 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	32.3%	35.6%	35.7%	36.2%
Operating Margin	19.8%	23.3%	23.2%	23.5%
Net Margin	11.9%	14.6%	17.5%	14.1%

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