Kelly Services Earnings Preview

Watch Kelly Services' (Nasdaq: KELYA  ) earnings report to see if it can beat analyst expectations for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Wednesday, Nov. 9. Kelly Services is a global workforce solutions provider operating in all major markets throughout the world. It assigns professional and technical employees in the fields of creative services, education, legal, and health care.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: The majority of analysts back Kelly Services as a buy. But with 75% of analysts rating it a buy, Kelly Services is still below the mean analyst rating of its nearest 10 competitors, which average 83% buys. Analysts don't like Kelly Services as much as competitor TrueBlue overall. Seven out of nine analysts rate TrueBlue a buy compared to three out of four for Kelly Services. 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 $1.43 billion in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 11.7% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.43 per share. Estimates range from $0.37 to $0.50.

What our community says:
The majority of CAPS All-Stars see Kelly Services as a good bet, with 68% granting it an outperform rating. The majority of the Fools are in agreement with the All-Stars, as 79.4% give it an outperform rating. Fools have embraced Kelly Services, though the message boards have been quiet lately, with only 43 posts in the past 30 days. Kelly Services' bearish CAPS rating of two out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

Management:

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	16%	16%	16.3%	16.1%
Operating Margin	1.5%	0.1%	1.3%	1.1%
Net Margin	1.3%	0.1%	1.1%	0.7%

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