Simmons First National Earnings Preview

Investors braced for a bumpy ride ahead of Simmons First National's (Nasdaq: SFNC  ) earnings announcement as the company has wavered between beating and falling short of analyst predictions during the past fiscal year. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday. Simmons First National is primarily engaged in providing a full range of banking services to individual and corporate customers through its subsidiaries and their branch banks in Arkansas.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on Simmons First National with three of four analysts rating it hold. 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 $42.4 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 3.8% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.38 per share. Estimates range from $0.36 to $0.40.

What our community says:
The majority of CAPS All-Stars see SFNC as a good bet, with 57.1% awarding it an outperform rating. The majority of the Fools are in agreement with the All-Stars as 65.2% give it an "outperform" rating. Fools are gung-ho about Simmons First National, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only nine posts in the past 30 days. Simmons First National has a CAPS rating of zero out of five stars.

Management:
Simmons First National's profit has risen year over year by an average of 32.4% over the past five 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	14.4%	11.2%	24.7%	16.2%

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