NV Energy Earnings Preview

NV Energy (NYSE: NVE  ) hasn't been able to establish an earnings trend, bouncing between beating and falling short of estimates during the past fiscal year. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Wednesday, Nov. 2. NV Energy is an investor-owned holding company. Its utilities operate three business segments: NPC electric, SPPC electric, and SPPC natural gas.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back NV Energy, with five of eight rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts like NV Energy better than competitor Pinnacle West Capital 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 $1.09 billion in revenue this quarter. That would represent a decline of 3.5% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.71 per share. Estimates range from $0.68 to $0.75.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock, with 100% awarding it an outperform rating. The community at large backs the All-Stars, with 95.6% assigning it a rating of outperform. Fools are gung-ho about NV Energy, though the message boards have been quiet lately, with only 44 posts in the past 30 days. NV Energy has a bullish CAPS rating of five out of five stars that is about on par with the Fool community assessment.

Management:
Revenue has fallen for the past three 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 and net margins over the past four quarters.

Quarter	Q2	Q1	Q4	Q3
Gross Margin	44.5%	43.3%	43.2%	50.1%
Net Margin	1.9%	0.4%	1.4%	16.1%

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