Cascade Earnings Preview

Investors hope Cascade (NYSE: CASC  ) will top analyst estimates once again after beating predictions by $0.55 in the previous quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday, Sept. 1. Cascade is an international company engaged in the manufacture of materials handling products that are used on industrial lift trucks and on construction, mining, and agricultural vehicles.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Half of analysts think investors should stand pat on Cascade while the remaining half rate the stock as a buy. Analysts like Cascade better than competitor NACCO Industries overall. Zero out of one analysts rate NACCO Industries a buy compared to two of four for Cascade. Cascade's rating hasn't changed over the past three months.
• Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $135.9 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 39% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $1.30 per share. Estimates range from $1.28 to $1.32.

What our community says:
CAPS All Stars are solidly backing the stock, with 94.9% assigning it an "outperform" rating. The community at large concurs with the All Stars, with 93.7% giving it a rating of "outperform." Fools are bullish on Cascade, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 56 posts in the past 30 days. Even with a robust four out of five stars, Cascade's CAPS rating falls a little short of the community's upbeat outlook.

Management:
The company boosted its gross margin by 3.2 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 44.3% while cost of sales rose 37.7% to $91.8 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	32.6%	28.7%	31.5%	30.2%
Operating Margin	18.0%	6.3%	14.4%	10.7%
Net Margin	12.1%	3.4%	8.2%	3.3%

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