Polaris Industries Earnings Preview

Polaris Industries (NYSE: PII  ) will try to beat its earnings estimates for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Wednesday, Jan. 25. Polaris Industries designs, engineers, and manufactures off-road vehicles, including all terrain vehicles, side-by-side vehicles for recreational and utility use, snowmobiles, and motorcycles.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back Polaris Industries, with 10 of 11 rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts like Polaris Industries better than competitor Brunswick overall. Analysts still rate the stock a moderate buy, but they are a bit more wary about it compared to three months ago.
• Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $752.7 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 21.7% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.89 per share. Estimates range from $0.79 to $0.99.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock with 93% assigning it an "outperform" rating. The community at large agrees with the All-Stars with 86.9% awarding it a rating of "outperform." Fools are bullish on Polaris Industries and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 102 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of Polaris Industries, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:
Polaris Industries' profit has risen year over year by an average of 74.2% over the past five quarters. The company upped its gross margin by 2.4 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 25.8% while cost of sales rose 21.8% to $523 million from a year earlier.

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	Q3	Q2	Q1	Q4
Gross Margin	28.3%	29.2%	28.3%	27.7%
Operating Margin	15.1%	12.7%	13.0%	12.6%
Net Margin	9.3%	8.0%	8.8%	8.8%

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