SkyWest Earnings Preview

SkyWest (Nasdaq: SKYW  ) will try to beat its earnings estimates for the fourth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Wednesday. SkyWest through its wholly owned subsidiaries SkyWest Airlines and Atlantic Southeast Airlines offers scheduled passenger service.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts are divided on SkyWest, with equal numbers rating the stock a buy, sell, and hold. Analysts don't like SkyWest as much as competitor AMR overall. Six out of 12 analysts rate AMR a buy compared to two of six for SkyWest. Analysts haven't adjusted their rating of SkyWest for the past three months.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $966 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 40.6% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.14 per share. Estimates range from $0.05 to $0.24.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock with 79.6% assigning it an outperform rating. The community at large concurs with the All-Stars with 81.1% awarding it a rating of outperform. Fools have embraced SkyWest and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 106 posts in the past 30 days. SkyWest'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	Q2	Q1	Q4	Q3
Gross Margin	55.8%	57.3%	76.0%	55.3%
Operating Margin	2.0%	0%	6.5%	8.5%
Net Margin	0.2%	(1.3%)	4.7%	3.7%

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

Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.