Kulicke & Soffa Industries Earnings Preview

Kulicke & Soffa Industries (Nasdaq: KLIC  ) will try to beat its earnings estimates for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday, Nov. 10. Kulicke & Soffa Industries designs, manufactures, and sells capital equipment and expendable tools used to assemble semiconductor devices, including integrated circuits, high- and low-powered discrete devices, LEDs, and power modules.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts are bullish on this stock with two analysts rating it as a buy and only one rating it as a sell. Analysts don't like Kulicke & Soffa Industries as much as competitor Rudolph Technologies overall. Analysts' rating of Kulicke & Soffa Industries has stayed constant from three months prior.
• Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $164.3 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a decline of 36.6% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.27 per share. Estimates range from $0.25 to $0.28.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock with 96.9% assigning it an "outperform" rating. The community at large backs the All-Stars with 94.5% awarding it a rating of "outperform." Fools are gung-ho about Kulicke & Soffa Industries, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 94 posts in the past 30 days. Even with a robust four out of five stars, Kulicke & Soffa Industries' CAPS rating falls a little short of the community's upbeat outlook.

Management:
Kulicke & Soffa Industries' profit has risen year over year by an average of more than threefold over the past five 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	Q3	Q2	Q1	Q4
Gross Margin	45.5%	47.9%	48.4%	43.3%
Operating Margin	27.7%	21.1%	14.8%	21.9%
Net Margin	24.0%	19.3%	10.1%	21.6%

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The Motley Fool owns shares of Kulicke & Soffa Industries. 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.