St. Jude Medical Earnings Preview

Watch St. Jude Medical's (NYSE: STJ  ) earnings report to see if it can beat analyst expectations for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings Wednesday. St. Jude Medical develops, manufactures, and distributes cardiovascular medical devices.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts are bullish on this stock with 21 analysts rating it as a buy and only one rating it as a sell. Analysts like St. Jude Medical better than competitor Boston Scientific overall. Analysts still rate the stock a moderate buy, but they are a bit more wary about it compared with three months ago.
• Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $1.37 billion in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 10.5% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.76 per share. Estimates range from $0.74 to $0.79.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock with 96.6% awarding it an "outperform" rating. The community at large agrees with the All-Stars with 95.2% granting it a rating of "outperform." Fools are keen on St. Jude Medical and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 129 posts in the past 30 days. Even with a robust four out of five stars, St. Jude Medical's CAPS rating falls a little short of the community's upbeat outlook.

Management:
St. Jude Medical's profit has risen year over year by an average of 6.6% 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	Q2	Q1	Q4	Q3
Gross Margin	72.7%	73.5%	70.1%	72.6%
Operating Margin	22.5%	23.4%	19.8%	24.1%
Net Margin	16.7%	17.0%	15.3%	16.8%

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