OGE Energy Earnings Preview

Investors braced for a bumpy ride ahead of OGE Energy's (NYSE: OGE  ) 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 Thursday, August 4. OGE Energy is an energy and energy services provider offering physical delivery and related services for both electricity and natural gas in the south-central United States.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts generally think investors should hang on to OGE Energy, with half rating the stock a hold. Analysts don't like OGE Energy as much as competitor CMS Energy overall. Nine out of 14 analysts rate CMS Energy a buy compared to four of eight for OGE Energy. While analysts still rate the stock a moderate buy, they are a little more optimistic about it compared to three months ago.
• Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.90 per share. Estimates range from $0.86 to $0.95.

What our community says:
CAPS All Stars are solidly behind the stock, with 95.1% granting it an "outperform" rating. The community at large concurs with the All Stars, with 91.4% awarding it a rating of "outperform." Fools have embraced OGE Energy, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 39 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of OGE Energy, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:
OGE Energy's profit has risen year over year by an average of 5.3%. A year-over-year revenue decrease last quarter snaps a streak of three consecutive quarters of revenue increases.

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 and net margins over the past four quarters:

Quarter	Q1	Q4	Q3	Q2
Gross Margin	20.1%	21.9%	32.9%	27.7%
Net Margin	3.0%	3.7%	14.5%	8.7%

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