ANSYS Earnings Preview

Watch ANSYS' (Nasdaq: ANSS  ) earnings report to see if it can beat analyst expectations for the third consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings Thursday. ANSYS develops and globally markets engineering simulation software and services used by engineers and designers across a spectrum of industries, including aerospace, automotive, manufacturing, electronics, biomedical, energy, and defense.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on ANSYS with six of 10 analysts rating it hold. Analysts don't like ANSYS as much as competitor Synopsys overall. Seven out of seven analysts rate Synopsys a buy compared with four of 10 for ANSYS. While analysts still rate the stock a hold, they are a little more optimistic about it compared with three months ago.
• Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $159.3 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 15.6% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.52 per share. Estimates range from $0.52 to $0.53.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 98.9% giving it an "outperform" rating. The community at large backs the All-Stars with 96.8% awarding it a rating of "outperform." Fools are bullish on ANSYS, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 84 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of ANSYS, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:
ANSYS' profit has risen year over year by an average of 27.6%. 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	83.2%	83.9%	81.9%	82.5%
Operating Margin	39.4%	39.3%	37.1%	38.0%
Net Margin	26.7%	29.5%	25.8%	25.8%

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