Investors are on the edge of their collective seats, hoping that ZOLL Medical (Nasdaq: ZOLL) will top analyst expectations for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Tuesday, Nov. 15. Zoll Medical develops and markets medical devices and software solutions that help advance emergency care and save lives while increasing clinical and operational efficiencies.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts are very bullish on this stock, unanimously backing it as a buy. Analysts like ZOLL Medical better than competitor CONMED overall. Two out of four analysts rate CONMED a buy compared to seven out of seven for ZOLL Medical. 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 $142 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 18% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.48 per share. Estimates range from $0.43 to $0.52.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock, with 94.3% awarding it an outperform rating. The community at large concurs with the All-Stars, with 95.3% assigning it a rating of outperform. Fools are bullish on ZOLL Medical, though the message boards have been quiet lately, with only 44 posts in the past 30 days. ZOLL Medical has a bullish CAPS rating of five out of five stars that is about on par with the Fool community assessment.

Management:
ZOLL Medical's profit has risen year over year by an average of 77.9% over the past five quarters. Revenue has now gone up for three straight quarters. The company raised its gross margin by 4.2 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 22.3% while cost of sales rose 11.2% to $57 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

Q3

Q2

Q1

Q4

Gross Margin

58.1%

58.3%

54.2%

55.2%

Operating Margin

9.9%

7.5%

4.7%

9.5%

Net Margin

7%

4.9%

3.4%

6%

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks.