Investors braced for a bumpy ride ahead of Techne's (Nasdaq: TECH) earnings announcement as the company has wavered between beating and falling short of analyst predictions during the past fiscal year. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Tuesday, August 2. Techne and subsidiaries are engaged in the development, manufacture, and sale of biotechnology products and hematology calibrators and controls.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back Techne, with four of five rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts like Techne better than competitor QIAGEN N.V. overall. Analysts still rate the stock a moderate buy, but they are a bit more wary about it compared to three months ago.
  • Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $74.8 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 12.2% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.78 per share. Estimates range from $0.77 to $0.80.

What our community says:
CAPS All Stars are solidly behind the stock, with 99% giving it an "outperform" rating. The community at large backs the All Stars, with 97.7% awarding it a rating of "outperform." Fools are bullish on Techne, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 69 posts in the past 30 days. Techne has a bullish CAPS rating of five out of five stars that is about on par with the Fool community assessment.

Management:
Revenue has 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

Q3

Q2

Q1

Q4

Gross Margin

79.2%

77.5%

77.6%

79.3%

Operating Margin

58.7%

55.2%

56.5%

58.3%

Net Margin

40.7%

39.2%

38.8%

38.8%

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