Buffalo Wild Wings Earnings Preview

Investors hope Buffalo Wild Wings (Nasdaq: BWLD  ) will top analyst estimates once again after beating predictions by $0.03 in the previous quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Tuesday, Feb. 7. Buffalo Wild Wings is an owner, operator, and franchiser of restaurants.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back Buffalo Wild Wings, with nine of 17 rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts like Buffalo Wild Wings better than competitor BJ's Restaurants 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 $210.1 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 28.1% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.67 per share. Estimates range from $0.64 to $0.70.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are strongly backing the stock, with 97.3% assigning it an "outperform" rating. The greater community backs the All-Stars, as 93.7% give it a rating of "outperform." Fools are bullish on Buffalo Wild Wings and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 1,633 posts in the past 30 days. Even with a robust four out of five stars, Buffalo Wild Wings' CAPS rating falls a little short of the community's upbeat outlook.

Management:
Buffalo Wild Wings' profit has risen year-over-year by an average of 27.9% over the past five 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. Buffalo Wild Wings' gross margins, which reflect the total sales revenue retained after costs, have been rising year-over-year for the last four quarters. Here are Buffalo Wild Wings' reported margins for the last four quarters:

Quarter	Q3	Q2	Q1	Q4
Gross Margin	26.1%	27.9%	28.7%	26.7%
Operating Margin	8.1%	8.7%	12.1%	8.9%
Net Margin	5.7%	5.8%	8.2%	6.2%

One final thing: If you want to keep tabs on Buffalo Wild Wings 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.