VCA Antech (Nasdaq: WOOF) hasn't been able to establish an earnings trend, bouncing between beating and falling short of estimates during the past fiscal year. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday, February 16. VCA Antech is an animal healthcare company, which provides veterinary services and diagnostic testing services to support veterinary care.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back VCA Antech, with eight of 12 rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts like VCA Antech better than competitor MWI Veterinary Supply overall. 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 $369.4 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 9.3% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.25 per share. Estimates range from $0.23 to $0.28.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock, with 97.6% giving it an "outperform" rating. Most of the community backs the All-Stars, with 95.5% granting it a rating of "outperform." Fools are gung-ho about VCA Antech, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 86 posts in the past 30 days. VCA Antech has a bullish CAPS rating of five out of five stars that is about on par with the Fool community assessment.

Management:
VCA Antech's profit has risen year-over-year by an average of 4.9% over the past five quarters. Revenue has now gone up for three straight quarters.

Now, a look at how efficient management has been at running the business. Traditionally, margins serve as an illustration of how efficiently a company captures portions of sales dollars. VCA Antech has seen declining gross margins year-over-year for the last four quarters. Gross margins reflect the total sales revenue retained after costs. Here are VCA Antech's reported margins for the last four quarters: 

Quarter Q3 Q2 Q1 Q4
Gross Margin 23.4% 25.7% 22.5% 20.6%
Operating Margin 15% 18.6% 15.1% 11.9%
Net Margin 7.8% 10.5% 8.1% 6.4%

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks.