On Assignment Earnings Preview

Investors are on the edges of their seats, hoping that On Assignment (Nasdaq: ASGN  ) will top analyst expectations for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Tuesday, Feb. 14. On Assignment is a professional staffing firm that provides flexible and permanent staffing solutions in specialty skills including laboratory/scientific, healthcare/nursing, physicians, medical financial, information technology, and engineering.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts are very bullish on this stock, unanimously backing it as a buy. Analysts like On Assignment better than competitor Kforce overall. Five out of eight analysts rate Kforce a buy compared to four of four for On Assignment. Analysts haven't adjusted their rating of On Assignment for the past three months.
• Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $158.1 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 30.5% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.16 per share. Estimates range from $0.15 to $0.16.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock, with 92.9% awarding it an "outperform" rating. The community at large agrees with the All-Stars, with 85.7% assigning it a rating of "outperform." Fools are bullish on On Assignment, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 29 posts in the past 30 days. Though still bullish, the CAPS rating of four out of five stars for On Assignment is a bit more pessimistic than the community assessment.

Management:
Now let's get some insight into how efficient management is at running the business. Margins illustrate how efficiently a company captures portions of sales dollars. On Assignment's operating margins have been increasing year-over-year for the last three quarters. Operating margins reflect the total sales revenue that the company retains after costs. Here are On Assignment's reported margins for the last four quarters: 

Quarter	Q3	Q2	Q1	Q4
Gross Margin	33.6%	34.0%	33.3%	34.9%
Operating Margin	8.5%	7.5%	4.9%	(7.0%)
Net Margin	4.8%	4.1%	2.4%	(11.3%)

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