Gulfport Energy (Nasdaq: GPOR) came in right in line with the Street's expectations last quarter, but investors are hoping it will beat them this quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday. Gulfport Energy is an independent oil and gas exploration, development, and production company with its principal properties located on the Louisiana coast and in West Texas in the Permian basin.

What analysts say

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts are very bullish on this stock, unanimously backing it as a buy. Analysts like Gulfport Energy better than competitor Quicksilver Resources overall. Eight out of 21 analysts rate Quicksilver Resources a buy compared to eight of eight for Gulfport Energy. 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 $53.1 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 83.9% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.57 per share. Estimates range from $0.52 to $0.66.

What our community says
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 96% granting it an outperform rating. The community at large agrees with the All-Stars with 95.8% assigning it a rating of outperform. Fools have embraced Gulfport Energy and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 113 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of Gulfport Energy, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management
Gulfport Energy's profit has risen year over year by an average of 90.8%. The company upped its gross margin by five percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 69.3% while cost of sales rose 37.9% to $10.2 million from a year earlier.

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

78.1%

76.1%

76.7%

74.0%

Operating Margin

47.0%

39.4%

40.6%

38.1%

Net Margin

45.7%

38.1%

38.2%

36.0%

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