Investors are on the edge of their collective seats, hoping that Stratasys (Nasdaq: SSYS) will top analyst expectations for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Tuesday, Feb. 7. Stratasys is a worldwide manufacturer of three-dimensional printers and high-performance rapid prototyping systems for the office-based RP and direct digital manufacturing markets.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on Stratasys, with four out of six analysts rating it hold. Stratasys' rating hasn't changed over the past three months.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $42 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 24.3% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.26 per share. Estimates range from $0.22 to $0.28.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock, with 97% giving it an outperform rating. Most of the community agrees with the All-Stars, with 94.7% assigning it a rating of outperform. Fools are gung-ho about Stratasys and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 128 posts in the past 30 days. Even with a robust four out of five stars, Stratasys' CAPS rating falls a little short of the community's upbeat outlook.

Management:
Stratasys' income has fallen year-over-year by an average of more than threefold over the past five quarters. The company raised its gross margin by 5.7 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 31.2% while cost of sales rose 16.7% to $18.1 million from a year earlier.

Now let's get some insight into how efficient management is at running the business. Margins are a representation of how efficiently a company captures portions of sales dollars. Stratasys' net margins, which reflect what percentage of revenue becomes profit, have been rising year over year for the last four quarters. Here are Stratasys' reported margins for the last four quarters:

Quarter

Q3

Q2

Q1

Q4

Gross Margin

54.3%

52.6%

53.2%

50.9%

Operating Margin

19.8%

16.2%

18%

18.2%

Net Margin

14.8%

10.6%

14.5%

12.7%

One final thing: If you want to keep tabs on Stratasys' 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.