Investors hope SPX (NYSE: SPW) will top analyst estimates once again after beating predictions by $0.12 in the previous quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday. SPX is a global multi-industry manufacturing company offering highly specialized engineered solutions to solve critical problems for customers.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts are bullish on SPX as six analysts rate it as a buy and only one analyst rates it as a hold. Analysts still rate the stock a moderate buy, but they are a bit more wary about it compared to three months ago.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $1.51 billion in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 14.4% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $1.76 per share. Estimates range from $1.70 to $1.83.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are strongly backing the stock, with 93.3% assigning it an outperform rating. The greater community concurs with the All-Stars, as 93.3% give it a rating of outperform. Fools are keen on SPX, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 42 posts in the past 30 days. Even with a robust four out of five stars, SPX's CAPS rating falls a little short of the community's upbeat outlook.

Management:
SPX's income has fallen year-over-year by an average of 47.1% over the past five quarters. Revenue has now gone up for three straight quarters.

Now let's look at how efficient management is at running the business. Margins are a representation of how efficiently a company captures portions of sales dollars. SPX has experienced a dip in operating margins year-over-year for the last three quarters. Operating margins reflect the total sales revenue that the company retains after costs. See how SPX has been doing for the last four quarters:

Quarter

Q3

Q2

Q1

Q4

Gross Margin

28.2%

27.7%

29.1%

29.3%

Operating Margin

7.7%

4.3%

4.3%

7.2%

Net Margin

4.4%

2.5%

1.9%

4.9%

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks.