WellCare Health Plans Earnings Preview

WellCare Health Plans (NYSE: WCG  ) will try to beat its earnings estimates for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Wednesday, Feb. 15. WellCare Health Plans provides managed care services -- including prescription drug plans and health plans -- for families, children, the aged, blind, and disabled.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on WellCare Health Plans with 10 of 12 analysts rating it hold. Analysts don't like WellCare Health Plans as much as competitor Centene overall. Eight out of 15 analysts rate Centene a buy compared to two of 12 for WellCare Health Plans. Analysts still rate the stock a hold, but they are a bit more wary about it compared to three months ago.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $1.59 billion in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 16.9% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $1.15 per share. Estimates range from $1.02 to $1.32.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock, with 95.7% awarding it an "outperform" rating. Most of the community concurs with the All-Stars, with 91.4% assigning it a rating of "outperform." Fools are bullish on WellCare Health Plans and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 203 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of WellCare Health Plans, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:
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. WellCare Health Plans has seen increasing net margins year over year for the last four quarters. Net margins reflect what percentage of each dollar earned by the company becomes profit. Here is how WellCare Health Plans has been doing for the last four quarters:

Quarter	Q3	Q2	Q1	Q4
Net Margin	5.7%	4.7%	1.4%	1.9%

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks.