City Holding Company Earnings Preview

Investors are on the edge of their collective seats, hoping that City Holding Company (Nasdaq: CHCO  ) will top analyst expectations for the third consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday, Oct. 20. City Holding is a bank holding company that, through its subsidiary, provides credit, deposit, trust, investment management, and insurance products and services.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on City Holding, with seven of nine analysts rating it hold. Analysts don't like City Holding as much as competitor Peoples Bancorp overall. One out of two analysts rate Peoples Bancorp a buy compared to two of nine for City Holding. Analysts still rate the stock a hold, but they are a bit more wary about it compared to three months ago.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $35.9 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 3.1% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.65 per share. Estimates range from $0.59 to $0.69.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock, with 91.3% awarding it an outperform rating. The community at large agrees with the All-Stars, with 89.3% granting it a rating of outperform. Fools are keen on City Holding, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 18 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of City Holding, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:
City Holding's income has fallen year over year by an average of 7.4% over the past five quarters. Revenue has fallen for the past three 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 net margins over the past four quarters.

Quarter	Q2	Q1	Q4	Q3
Net Margin	21.9%	23.2%	23.4%	20.3%

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