PAREXEL International Earnings Preview

PAREXEL International (Nasdaq: PRXL  ) came in under analysts' estimates last quarter but now has a chance to fix things this quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Tuesday. PAREXEL International is a biopharmaceutical company, providing expertise in clinical research, medical communications services, consulting, and informatics.

What analysts say

• Buy, sell, or hold?: The majority of analysts back PAREXEL International as a buy. But with 55.6% of analysts rating it a buy, PAREXEL International is still below the mean analyst rating of its nearest 10 competitors, which average 61.3% buys. Analysts don't like PAREXEL International as much as competitor ICON overall. Six out of nine analysts rate ICON a buy compared to five of nine for PAREXEL International.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $305 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 3.3% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.06 per share. Estimates range from $0.01 to $0.08.

What our community says
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 97.1% awarding it an outperform rating. The community at large backs the All-Stars with 96% assigning it a rating of outperform. Fools are keen on PAREXEL International, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 80 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of PAREXEL International, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management
PAREXEL International's profit has risen year over year by an average of more than twofold. Revenue has now gone up for three straight quarters. The company's gross margin shrank by 2.1 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 2.5% while cost of sales rose 5.7% to $244.1 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.

One final thing: If you want to keep tabs on PAREXEL International movements, and for more analysis on the company, make sure you add it to your watchlist.

Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.