Piper Jaffray Earnings Preview

Investors braced for a bumpy ride ahead of Piper Jaffray's (NYSE: PJC  ) earnings announcement, as the company has wavered between beating and falling short of analyst predictions during the past fiscal year. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Wednesday, Jan. 25. Piper Jaffray and its subsidiaries provide investment banking, institutional brokerage, asset management, and related financial services.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on Piper Jaffray Companies, with four out of five analysts rating it hold. Analysts don't like Piper Jaffray as much as competitor KBW overall. Two out of four analysts rate KBW a buy compared to one out of five for Piper Jaffray. Piper Jaffray's rating hasn't changed over the past three months.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $119.9 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a decline of 32% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.19 per share. Estimates range from $0.15 to $0.24.

What our community says:
The majority of CAPS All-Stars see Piper Jaffray as a good bet, with 56.5% giving it an outperform rating. The majority of the Fools are in agreement with the All-Stars, as 57.7% give it an outperform rating. Fools are keen on Piper Jaffray, though the message boards have been quiet lately, with only 38 posts in the past 30 days. Piper Jaffray's bearish CAPS rating of two out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

Management:
A year-over-year revenue decrease last quarter snaps a streak of three consecutive quarters of revenue increases.

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 net margins over the past four quarters.

One final thing: If you want to keep tabs on Piper Jaffray's 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.