Watch Home BancShares' (Nasdaq: HOMB) earnings report to see if it can beat analyst expectations for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday. Home BancShares is a bank holding company that provides a full range of banking services to individual and corporate customers through its five wholly owned community bank subsidiaries.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back Home BancShares, with six of eight rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts like Home BancShares better than competitor Bank of the Ozarks overall. Analysts still rate the stock a moderate buy, but they are a bit more wary about it compared to three months ago.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $46 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 19.7% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.48 per share. Estimates range from $0.44 to $0.49.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock with 78.6% assigning it an outperform rating. The community at large concurs with the All-Stars with 75.9% giving it a rating of outperform. Fools are bullish on Home BancShares, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 19 posts in the past 30 days. Home BancShares' bearish CAPS rating of one out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

Management:

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

25.7%

24.1%

(28.1%)

20.2%

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