FLIR Systems Earnings Preview

Investors are bracing for the worst and waiting to see if FLIR Systems (Nasdaq: FLIR  ) will fall short of Wall Street forecasts for the third consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday. FLIR Systems designs and manufactures thermal imaging systems used for a variety of applications in commercial, industrial, and government markets across the globe.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts are bullish on this stock with seven analysts rating it as a buy and only one rating it as a sell. Analysts like FLIR Systems better than competitor Elbit Systems overall. While analysts still rate the stock a hold, they are a little more optimistic about it compared to three months ago.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $395.3 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 18.9% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.37 per share. Estimates range from $0.34 to $0.41.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 99.5% assigning it an outperform rating. The community at large backs the All-Stars with 97.3% awarding it a rating of outperform. Fools have embraced FLIR Systems and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 231 posts in the past 30 days. FLIR Systems has a bullish CAPS rating of five out of five stars that is about on par with the Fool community assessment.

Management:
FLIR Systems' income has fallen year over year by an average of 9.5% over the past five quarters. The company's gross margin shrank by 2.9 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 17.8% while cost of sales rose 25.4% to $185.4 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	Q2	Q1	Q4	Q3
Gross Margin	52.5%	52.4%	53.4%	54.8%
Operating Margin	10.7%	20.5%	23.2%	25.8%
Net Margin	7.5%	13.7%	16.1%	18.9%

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