Louisiana-Pacific (NYSE: LPX) will look to avoid missing estimates for the third consecutive quarter when its earnings are released. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Tuesday. Louisiana-Pacific manufactures building products. It operates in three segments: oriented strand board, siding, and engineered wood products.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Half of analysts think investors should stand pat on Louisiana-Pacific. Analysts don't like Louisiana-Pacific as much as competitor Universal Forest Products overall. One out of four analysts rate Universal Forest Products a buy compared to two of 12 for Louisiana-Pacific.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $319.6 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 1.1% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is a loss of $0.21 per share. Estimates range from a loss of $0.27 to a loss of $0.16.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock, with 93.2% assigning it an outperform rating. The community at large agrees with the All-Stars, with 85.3% giving it a rating of outperform. Fools feel positively about Louisiana-Pacific, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 90 posts in the past 30 days. Louisiana-Pacific's bearish CAPS rating of two out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

Management:
Over the last four quarters, revenue has increased 4.2% on average year over year.

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. The company's net margins, which reflect what percentage of revenue becomes profit, have slipped downward year over year in the last two quarters. Here are Louisiana-Pacific's reported margins for the last four quarters:

Quarter

Q3

Q2

Q1

Q4

Gross Margin

8.2%

7.2%

11.1%

11.0%

Operating Margin

(20.7%)

(6.5%)

(5.5%)

(5.6%)

Net Margin

(18.7%)

(9.8%)

(6.9%)

(2.1%)

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks.