CryoLife Earnings Preview

CryoLife (NYSE: CRY  ) beat estimates by $0.06 last quarter and investors are hoping it can beat them again. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday, Oct. 27. CryoLife preserves and distributes human tissues and develops, manufactures, and commercializes medical devices for cardiac and vascular transplant applications.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on CryoLife with two of three analysts rating it hold. Analysts don't like CryoLife as much as competitor Vascular Solutions overall. Seven out of seven analysts rate Vascular Solutions a buy compared to one of three for CryoLife. CryoLife's rating hasn't changed over the past three months.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $30.6 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 $0.08 per share. Estimates range from $0.07 to $0.09.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 98.2% granting it an "outperform" rating. The community at large concurs with the All-Stars with 97.1% giving it a rating of "outperform." Fools are bullish on CryoLife and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 124 posts in the past 30 days. Even with a robust four out of five stars, CryoLife's CAPS rating falls a little short of the community's upbeat outlook.

Management:
The company's gross margin shrank by 30.5 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue fell 49.4% while cost of sales fell 10.2% to $10.3 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	30.2%	61.3%	60.2%	53.5%
Operating Margin	25.3%	8.1%	12.3%	(4.4%)
Net Margin	12.3%	5.5%	7.2%	(10.7%)

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

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