SWS Group Earnings Preview

SWS Group (NYSE: SWS  ) didn't hit the Street's expectations last quarter, but investors hope it will rebound this quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings Tuesday. SWS Group is a financial holding company, which delivers investment, commercial banking, and related financial services to individual, corporate, and institutional investors, as well as broker/dealers, governmental entities, and financial intermediaries.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts are divided on SWS Group, with equal numbers rating the stock a buy, sell, and hold. Analysts don't like SWS Group as much as competitor Gleacher & Company overall. Two out of four analysts rate Gleacher a buy compared with one of three for SWS Group. Analysts' rating of SWS Group has stayed constant from three months prior.
• Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $98.4 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 10.1% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is a loss of $0.02 per share. Estimates range from a loss of $0.07 to a profit of $0.03.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock with 91.2% assigning it an "outperform" rating. The community at large agrees with the All-Stars with 91.2% granting it a rating of "outperform." Fools have embraced SWS Group, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 34 posts in the past 30 days. Even with a robust four out of five stars, SWS Group's CAPS rating falls a little short of the community's upbeat outlook.

Management:
Revenue has fallen for the past three 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 net margins over the past four quarters.

Quarter	Q3	Q2	Q1	Q4
Net Margin	(2.4%)	(1.3%)	(20.1%)	(0.3%)

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