Acxiom Earnings Preview

Acxiom (Nasdaq: ACXM  ) only managed to meet estimates last quarter, but investors hope that it will surpass expectations this quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Wednesday, Oct. 26. Acxiom provides marketing technology and services that enable marketers to successfully manage audiences, personalize consumer experiences, and create profitable customer relationships.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: The majority of analysts back Acxiom as a buy. But with 60% of analysts rating it a buy, Acxiom is still below the mean analyst rating of its nearest 10 competitors, which average 62.5% buys. Analysts like Acxiom better than competitor RightNow Technologies overall. Eight out of 14 analysts rate RightNow Technologies a buy compared to three of five for Acxiom. Acxiom's rating hasn't changed over the past three months.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $300.6 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 $0.17 per share. Estimates range from $0.14 to $0.19.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 82.6% awarding it an "outperform" rating. The majority of the Fools are in agreement with the All-Stars as 69.4% give it an "outperform" rating. Fools are keen on Acxiom, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 36 posts in the past 30 days. Acxiom's bearish CAPS rating of two out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

Management:
Revenue has now gone up for three straight 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 gross, operating, and net margins over the past four quarters.

Quarter	Q1	Q4	Q3	Q2
Gross Margin	20.6%	25.2%	24.2%	23.2%
Operating Margin	7.7%	(17.8%)	11.6%	9.4%
Net Margin	3.8%	(22.4%)	7.0%	4.6%

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