By
Motley Fool Staff
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More Articles
January 23, 2012
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Investors hope Hill-Rom Holdings (NYSE: HRC ) will top analyst estimates once again after beating predictions by $0.02 in the previous quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Wednesday, Jan.25. Hill-Rom Holdings is a worldwide manufacturer and provider of medical technologies and related services for the health-care industry for a variety of acute and chronic medical conditions, medical equipment rentals, and information technology solutions.
What analysts say:
- Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts are bullish on this stock, with six analysts rating it as a buy and only one rating it as a sell. Analysts like Hill-Rom Holdings better than competitor Alere 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 $384.6 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 2.8% from the year-ago quarter.
- Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.53 cents per share.
What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock, with 95.7% giving it an outperform rating. The community at large backs the All-Stars, with 83.3% granting it a rating of outperform. Fools are gung-ho about Hill-Rom Holdings, though the message boards have been quiet lately, with only 36 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of Hill-Rom Holdings, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.
Management:
Hill-Rom Holdings' profit has risen year over year by an average of 11.2% over the past five quarters. 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.
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Quarter
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Q4
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Q3
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Q2
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Q1
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Gross Margin
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48.9%
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48.8%
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49.4%
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49.3%
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Operating Margin
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14.7%
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1.2%
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12.3%
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13.3%
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Net Margin
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14.7%
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0.4%
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8.2%
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9.4%
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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks.
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