Apogee Enterprises Earnings Preview

Investors never know what to expect for Apogee Enterprises (Nasdaq: APOG  ) , as it has wavered between topping and missing analyst estimates during the past fiscal year. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Wednesday. Apogee Enterprises provides technologies involving the design and development of value-added glass products, services, and systems.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back Apogee Enterprises, with three of five rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts haven't adjusted their rating of Apogee Enterprises for the past three months.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $157.6 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 9% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is a loss of $0.03 per share. Estimates range from a loss of $0.07 to breaking even.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock with 95.4% assigning it an outperform rating. The community at large agrees with the All-Stars with 93.5% awarding it a rating of outperform. Fools have embraced Apogee Enterprises and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 103 posts in the past 30 days. Even with a robust four out of five stars, Apogee Enterprises' CAPS rating falls a little short of the community's upbeat outlook.

Management:
The company increased its gross margin by 2.3 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 7.2% while cost of sales rose 4.4% to $129.7 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	15.4%	15.7%	15.7%	12.4%
Operating Margin	(2.2%)	(3.8%)	(1.3%)	(5.1%)
Net Margin	(1.4%)	(3.0%)	(1.6%)	(0.1%)

One final thing: If you want to keep tabs on Apogee Enterprises 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.