NTELOS Holdings Earnings Preview

If NTELOS Holdings (Nasdaq: NTLS  ) misses estimates again it will be the fifth consecutive quarter for the company. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Friday, Nov. 4. NTELOS Holdings is an integrated communications provider that offers a range of products and services to businesses, telecommunications carriers, and residential customers in Virginia, West Virginia, and surrounding states.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back NTELOS Holdings, with seven of eight rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts like NTELOS Holdings better than competitor Shenandoah Telecommunications Company overall. Analysts still rate the stock a moderate buy, but they are a bit more wary about it compared to three months ago.
• Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.33 per share. Estimates range from $0.29 to $0.39.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 100% assigning it an "outperform" rating. The community at large concurs with the All-Stars with 96% giving it a rating of "outperform." Fools have embraced NTELOS Holdings, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 43 posts in the past 30 days. NTELOS Holdings has a bullish CAPS rating of five out of five stars that is about on par with the Fool community assessment.

Management:
NTELOS Holdings' income has fallen year over year by an average of 19.4% over the past five quarters. Revenue has now gone up for three straight quarters. The company's gross margin shrank by 2.7 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 16.8% while cost of sales rose 27% to $52.3 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	66.1%	66.0%	66.9%	67.5%
Operating Margin	20.2%	20.3%	19.1%	22.9%
Net Margin	8.3%	6.9%	6.1%	8.1%

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

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