Daktronics Earnings Preview

Daktronics (Nasdaq: DAKT  ) came in under analysts' estimates last quarter, but now has a chance to fix things this quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Tuesday, Nov. 22. Daktronics is a supplier of electronic scoreboards, large electronic display systems, and related marketing services, digital messaging solutions, software, and services for sporting, commercial, and transportation applications.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: The majority of analysts back Daktronics as a buy. But with 60% of analysts rating it a buy, Daktronics is still below the mean analyst rating of its nearest eight competitors, which average 100% buys. Analysts don't like Daktronics as much as competitor Chyron overall. One out of one analysts rate Chyron a buy compared to three out of five for Daktronics. That rating hasn't budged in three months as analysts have remained unchanged in their opinion of the stock.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $128.7 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 1.4% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.13 per share. Estimates range from $0.11 to $0.16.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock, with 96.8% giving it an outperform rating. The community at large concurs with the All-Stars, with 92.8% awarding it a rating of outperform. Fools have embraced Daktronics and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 195 posts in the past 30 days. Daktronics has a bullish CAPS rating of five out of five stars that is about on par with the Fool community assessment.

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	Q1	Q4	Q3	Q2
Gross Margin	24.9%	24.9%	23.7%	25.9%
Operating Margin	4.3%	4%	0.8%	7.9%
Net Margin	2.8%	2.6%	1.8%	5.5%

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks.