Hibbett Sports Earnings Preview

Investors are on the edge of their collective seats, hoping that Hibbett Sports (Nasdaq: HIBB  ) will top analyst expectations for the fourth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Friday. Hibbett Sports is an operator of sporting goods retail stores in small- to mid-sized markets in the United States.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back Hibbett Sports, with 10 of 16 rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts don't like Hibbett Sports as much as competitor Cabela's overall. While analysts still rate the stock a moderate buy, they are a little more optimistic about it compared to three months ago.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $179.9 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 7.5% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.51 per share. Estimates range from $0.50 to $0.54.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock with 87% awarding it an outperform rating. The community at large agrees with the All-Stars with 80% assigning it a rating of outperform. Fools are bullish on Hibbett Sports, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 48 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of Hibbett Sports, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:
Hibbett Sports' profit has risen year over year by an average of 30.1% over the past five quarters. Revenue has now gone up for three straight 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	Q2	Q1	Q4	Q3
Gross Margin	33.1%	37.2%	34.9%	35.3%
Operating Margin	6.1%	16.8%	11.1%	12.0%
Net Margin	3.9%	10.5%	7.2%	7.5%

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks