Piedmont Natural Gas Earnings Preview

Piedmont Natural Gas (NYSE: PNY  ) will look to avoid missing estimates for the fifth consecutive quarter when its earnings are released. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Monday. Piedmont Natural Gas is an energy services company whose principal business is the distribution of natural gas to residential, commercial, industrial, and power generation customers in portions of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on Piedmont Natural Gas with six of eight analysts rating it hold. Analysts don't like Piedmont Natural Gas as much as competitor Vectren overall. One out of seven analysts rate Vectren a buy compared to one of eight for Piedmont Natural Gas. 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 $200.1 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 3.1% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is a loss of $0.13 per share. Estimates range from a loss of $0.16 to a loss of $0.10.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 93.8% awarding it an outperform rating. The community at large backs the All-Stars with 91.3% giving it a rating of outperform. Fools are gung-ho about Piedmont Natural Gas, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 42 posts in the past 30 days. Even with a robust four out of five stars, Piedmont Natural Gas' CAPS rating falls a little short of the community's upbeat outlook.

Management:
Revenue has fallen for the past three 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 and net margins over the past four quarters.

Quarter	Q3	Q2	Q1	Q4
Gross Margin	14.5%	29.0%	27.4%	14.5%
Net Margin	(4.4%)	12.1%	12.9%	(4.7%)

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks