Avnet (NYSE: AVT) will try to beat its earnings estimates for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings Wednesday. Avnet, together with its consolidated subsidiaries, is an industrial distributor of electronic components, enterprise computer and storage products, and embedded subsystems.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back Avnet, with seven of eight rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts don't like Avnet as much as competitor Arrow Electronics overall. While analysts still rate the stock a moderate buy, they are a little more optimistic about it compared with three months ago.
  • Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $6.95 billion in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 33.4% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $1.15 per share. Estimates range from $1.11 to $1.19.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 98.4% giving it an "outperform" rating. The community at large backs the All-Stars with 92.9% awarding it a rating of "outperform." Fools are gung-ho about Avnet, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 83 posts in the past 30 days. Avnet has a bullish CAPS rating of five out of five stars that is about on par with the Fool community assessment.

Management:
Avnet's income has fallen year over year by an average of 79.5%.

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

11.8%

11.4%

11.7%

12.4%

Operating Margin

3.6%

3.4%

3.1%

4.2%

Net Margin

2.3%

2.1%

2.2%

2.7%

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