Quanex Building Products Earnings Preview

Quanex Building Products (NYSE: NX  ) hasn't been able to establish an earnings trend, bouncing between beating and falling short of estimates during the past fiscal year. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Monday. Quanex Building Products manufactures aluminum flat-rolled products, flexible insulating glass spacer systems, thin film solar panel sealants, extruded plastic profiles, and precision-formed metal and wood products.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on Quanex Building Products with five of eight analysts rating it hold. Analysts don't like Quanex Building Products as much as competitor NCI Building Systems overall. One out of two analysts rate NCI Building Systems a buy compared to three of eight for Quanex Building Products. Analysts' rating of Quanex Building Products has stayed constant from three months prior.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $246.7 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 11% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.24 per share. Estimates range from $0.18 to $0.31.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock with 95.7% giving it an outperform rating. The community at large backs the All-Stars with 86% granting it a rating of outperform. Fools are bullish on Quanex Building Products, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 55 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of Quanex Building Products, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:
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	Q3	Q2	Q1	Q4
Gross Margin	16.9%	13.6%	12.6%	18.0%
Operating Margin	5.8%	(1.1%)	(4.8%)	6.1%
Net Margin	3.6%	(0.7%)	(3.0%)	3.7%

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks