Park Electrochemical Earnings Preview

Investors never know what to expect for Park Electrochemical (NYSE: PKE  ) , as it has wavered between topping and missing analysts estimates during the past fiscal year. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Monday. Park Electrochemical develops, manufactures, markets, and sells high-technology digital and RF/microwave printed circuit materials products.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back Park Electrochemical, with two of three rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts like Park Electrochemical better than competitor Sanmina-SCI overall. That rating hasn't budged in three months as analysts have remained steady in their opinion of the stock.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $53.5 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a decline of 1.8% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.38 per share. Estimates range from $0.33 to $0.42.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 96.7% assigning it an outperform rating. The community at large agrees with the All-Stars with 94.8% giving it a rating of outperform. Fools are bullish on Park Electrochemical, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 27 posts in the past 30 days. Park Electrochemical has a bullish CAPS rating of five out of five stars that is about on par with the Fool community assessment.

Management:
Park Electrochemical's profit has risen year over year by an average of 5.5% over the past five quarters. A year-over-year revenue decrease last quarter snaps a streak of three consecutive quarters of revenue increases. The company's gross margin shrank by 3.3 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue fell 12.2% while cost of sales fell 7.8% to $35.8 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.

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