Zep
What analysts say:
- Buy, sell, or hold?: Half of analysts think investors should stand pat on Zep while the remaining half rate the stock as a buy. Analysts like Zep better than competitor Clorox overall. Zero out of 15 analysts rate Clorox a buy compared to two of four for Zep. 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 $155.7 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a decline of 1.1% from the year-ago quarter.
- Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.16 per share. Estimates range from $0.15 to $0.18.
What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 87.5% awarding it an outperform rating. The community at large backs the All-Stars with 90% assigning it a rating of outperform. Fools are bullish on Zep, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 24 posts in the past 30 days. Zep has a bullish CAPS rating of five out of five stars that is about on par with the Fool community assessment.
Management:
Zep's profit has risen year over year by an average of 73.6% over the past five quarters. Revenue has now gone up for three straight quarters. The company's gross margin shrank by 3.4 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 7.7% while cost of sales rose 14.7% to $95.9 million from a year earlier.
Quarter | Q4 | Q3 | Q2 | Q1 |
Gross Margin | 44.8% | 46.7% | 46.7% | 49.6% |
Operating Margin | 4.2% | 6.9% | 3.2% | 6.1% |
Net Margin | 2.3% | 3.7% | 1.5% | 3.1% |
For all our Zep-specific analysis, including earnings and beyond, add Zep to My Watchlist.
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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks