Acxiom Earnings Preview

Investors hope Acxiom (Nasdaq: ACXM  ) will top analyst estimates once again after beating predictions by $0.02 cents in the previous quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Monday, Jan. 23. Acxiom provides marketing technology and services that enable marketers to successfully manage audiences, personalize consumer experiences, and create profitable customer relationships.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back Acxiom, with three of five rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts like Acxiom better than competitor RightNow Technologies overall. That rating hasn't budged in three months as analysts have remained steady in their opinion of the stock.
• Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $307.2 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 2.7% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.21 cents per share. Estimates range from $0.19 cents to $0.23 cents.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 82.6% giving it an "outperform" rating. The majority of the Fools are in agreement with the All-Stars as 69.9% give it an "outperform" rating. Fools are gung-ho about Acxiom, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 36 posts in the past 30 days. Acxiom's bearish CAPS rating of two out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

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	Q2	Q1	Q4	Q3
Gross Margin	23.6%	20.6%	25.2%	24.2%
Operating Margin	9.6%	7.7%	(17.8%)	11.6%
Net Margin	4.1%	3.8%	(22.4%)	7%

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

The Steve Jobs Betrayal
You may already know that in the final year of his life, Jobs revealed a stunning betrayal — and told his biographer, "I will spend my last dying breath... and every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank to right this wrong." What was it that made Jobs so irate — and why could it make a few in-the-know investors some major profits over the coming months and years?

Enter your email address below to find out what made Jobs so enraged!

Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy..