Investors are on the edge of their collective seats, hoping that MSC Industrial Direct (NYSE: MSM) will top analyst expectations for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday. MSC Industrial Direct, together with its subsidiaries, is the direct marketers and distributors of a range of metalworking, maintenance, repair, and operations products to customers throughout the United States.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back MSC Industrial Direct, with six of 11 rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts like MSC Industrial Direct better than competitor Fastenal 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 $545.3 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 15.3% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.93 per share. Estimates range from $0.91 to $0.95.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 99% giving it an outperform rating. The community at large concurs with the All-Stars with 97.7% awarding it a rating of outperform. Fools have embraced MSC Industrial Direct, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 80 posts in the past 30 days. MSC Industrial Direct has a bullish CAPS rating of five out of five stars that is about on par with the Fool community assessment.

Management:
MSC Industrial Direct's profit has risen year over year by an average of 47.2% over the past five 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

Q4

Q3

Q2

Q1

Gross Margin

46.0%

47.3%

46.8%

46.0%

Operating Margin

17.6%

18.4%

16.7%

16.3%

Net Margin

11.1%

11.7%

10.3%

10.1%

One final thing: If you want to keep tabs on MSC Industrial Direct movements, and for more analysis on the company, make sure you add it to your watchlist.

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks