Thomas & Betts Earnings Preview

Thomas & Betts (NYSE: TNB  ) will try to beat its earnings estimates for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Monday, Jan. 30. Thomas & Betts designs and manufactures electrical components used in industrial, commercial, communications and utility markets. The company also produces commercial heating units and highly engineered steel structures used for utility transmission.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts are bullish on this stock with eight analysts rating it as a buy and only one rating it as a sell. Analysts like Thomas & Betts better than competitor Molex 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 $589.4 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 10.7% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.89 per share. Estimates range from $0.86 to $0.92.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock, with 98.8% granting it an "outperform" rating. The greater community backs the All-Stars, as 96.9% give it a rating of "outperform." Fools are impressed with Thomas & Betts, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 67 posts in the past 30 days. Thomas & Betts has a bullish CAPS rating of five out of five stars that is about on par with the Fool community assessment.

Management:
Thomas & Betts' profit has risen year-over-year by an average of 31.8% 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. Margins illustrate how efficiently a company captures portions of sales dollars. Thomas & Betts' net margins, which reflect what percentage of revenue becomes profit, have been rising year-over-year for the last four quarters. See how Thomas & Betts has been doing for the last four quarters:

Quarter	Q3	Q2	Q1	Q4
Gross Margin	31.7%	30.0%	31.3%	30.3%
Operating Margin	13.4%	12.5%	11.4%	9.3%
Net Margin	9.0%	7.7%	6.8%	8.2%

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

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