ANSYS (Nasdaq: ANSS) will try to beat its earnings estimates for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday, Feb. 23. Ansys develops and globally markets engineering simulation software and services used by engineers and designers across a spectrum of industries, including aerospace, automotive, manufacturing, electronics, biomedical, energy, and defense.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on ANSYS with six of 10 analysts rating it hold. Analysts don't like ANSYS as much as competitor Synopsys overall. Seven out of seven analysts rate Synopsys a buy compared to four of 10 for ANSYS. ANSYS' rating hasn't changed over the past three months.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $197.6 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 18.6% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.66 per share. Estimates range from $0.65 to $0.68.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are strongly backing the stock, with 98.8% giving it an "outperform" rating. Most of the community backs the All-Stars, with 96.5% awarding it a rating of "outperform." Despite the majority sentiment in favor of ANSYS, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:
ANSYS' profit has risen year-over-year by an average of 28.8% over the past five quarters.

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. For four quarters in a row, the company has seen increases in net margin year over year. Net margin reflects what percentage of revenue becomes profit. Here is how ANSYS has been doing for the last four quarters:

Quarter

Q3

Q2

Q1

Q4

Gross Margin

82.1%

82.7%

83.2%

83.9%

Operating Margin

37.8%

39.9%

39.4%

39.3%

Net Margin

26.3%

28.0%

26.7%

29.5%

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks.