Acuity Brands Earnings Preview

Acuity Brands (NYSE: AYI  ) will look to avoid missing estimates for the third consecutive quarter when its earnings are released. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Wednesday. Acuity Brands is a provider of lighting fixtures, control devices, components, systems, and services for commercial and institutional, industrial, infrastructure, and residential applications for various markets.

What analysts say:
 

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on Acuity Brands with five of nine analysts rating it hold. Analysts don't like Acuity Brands as much as competitor LSI Industries overall. One out of two analysts rate LSI Industries a buy compared to four of nine for Acuity Brands.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $482.9 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 8.7% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.80 per share. Estimates range from $0.76 to $0.85.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 96.8% awarding it an outperform rating. The community at large backs the All-Stars with 92.9% giving it a rating of outperform. Fools are gung-ho about Acuity Brands, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 73 posts in the past 30 days. Even with a robust four out of five stars, Acuity Brands' CAPS rating falls a little short of the community's upbeat outlook.

Management:
Acuity Brands' profit has risen year over year by an average of 45.1% over the past five quarters. Revenue has now gone up for three straight 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 gross, operating, and net margins over the past four quarters.

Quarter	Q3	Q2	Q1	Q4
Gross Margin	41.4%	39.4%	41.4%	41.5%
Operating Margin	11.0%	8.9%	10.7%	10.8%
Net Margin	5.9%	4.8%	5.7%	6.1%

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