Rent-A-Center Earnings Preview

Rent-A-Center (Nasdaq: RCII  ) hasn't been able to establish an earnings trend, bouncing between beating and falling short of estimates during the past fiscal year. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Monday, Jan. 30. Rent-A-Center is an operator in the United States rent-to-own industry.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back Rent-A-Center, with eight of 11 rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts like Rent-A-Center better than competitor Aaron's overall. Analysts haven't adjusted their rating of Rent-A-Center for the past three months.
• Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $741.1 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 9.5% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.82 per share. Estimates range from $0.78 to $0.84.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock, with 93.5% awarding it an "outperform" rating. Most of the community agrees with the All-Stars, with 84.7% giving it a rating of "outperform." Fools feel positively about Rent-A-Center, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 81 posts in the past 30 days. Rent-A-Center has a bullish CAPS rating of four out of five stars that is about on par with the Fool community assessment.

Management:
Rent-A-Center's income has fallen year-over-year by an average of 20.2% over the past five quarters. Revenue has now gone up for three straight quarters.

Now, a look at how efficient management has been at running the business. Traditionally, margins represent the efficiency with which companies capture portions of sales dollars. Rent-A-Center has seen decreasing net margins year-over-year for the last four quarters. Net margins reflect what percentage of each dollar earned by the company becomes profit. Here is how Rent-A-Center has been doing for the last four quarters:

Quarter	Q3	Q2	Q1	Q4
Gross Margin	14.2%	15.9%	17.0%	16.8%
Operating Margin	8.2%	10.5%	10.8%	9.3%
Net Margin	4.4%	5.7%	6.0%	4.7%

For all our Rent-A-Center-specific analysis, including earnings and beyond, add Rent-A-Center to My Watchlist.

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