Hittite Microwave Earnings Preview

Watch Hittite Microwave's (Nasdaq: HITT  ) earnings report to see if it can beat analyst expectations for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday, Oct. 20. Hittite Microwave designs and develops high performance integrated circuits, modules and subsystems for technically demanding radio frequency, microwave, and millimeterwave applications.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back Hittite Microwave, with four of six rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts don't like Hittite Microwave as much as competitor Semtech overall. Wall Street has warmed to the stock over the past three months, with analysts increasing their endorsement from hold to moderate buy.
• Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $69.1 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 7.7% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.67 per share. Estimates range from $0.66 to $0.68.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock with 96.3% giving it an "outperform" rating. The community at large concurs with the All-Stars, with 96.4% assigning it a rating of "outperform." Hittite Microwave has a bullish CAPS rating of five out of five stars that is about on par with the Fool community assessment.

Management:
Hittite Microwave's profit has risen year over year by an average of 40.9% over the past five quarters. The company's gross margin shrank by 2.1 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 13.6% while cost of sales rose 23% to $18.7 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	72.7%	73.0%	74.5%	74.6%
Operating Margin	46.8%	46.4%	49.1%	50.2%
Net Margin	30.4%	30.0%	31.9%	32.5%

One final thing: If you want to keep tabs on Hittite Microwave movements, and for more analysis on the company, make sure you add it to your Watchlist.

The Steve Jobs Betrayal
You may already know that in the final year of his life, Jobs revealed a stunning betrayal — and told his biographer, "I will spend my last dying breath... and every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank to right this wrong." What was it that made Jobs so irate — and why could it make a few in-the-know investors some major profits over the coming months and years?

Enter your email address below to find out what made Jobs so enraged!

Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.