First American (NYSE: FAF) beat estimates by $0.02 last quarter and investors are hoping it can beat them again. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday, Feb. 23. First American Financial provides financial services through its title insurance and services segment and its specialty insurance segment.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on First American, with analysts unanimously rating it hold. Analysts' rating of First American has stayed constant from three months prior.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $1.01 billion in revenue this quarter. That would represent a decline of 1% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.30 per share. Estimates range from $0.23 to $0.37.

What our community says:
The majority of CAPS All-Stars consider First American a good bet, as 63.6% award it an outperform rating. The majority of the Fools are in agreement with the All-Stars, as 76.9% give it an outperform rating. First American's bearish CAPS rating of two out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

Management:
Revenue has fallen in the past two quarters.

Now let's get some insight into how efficient management is at running the business. Margins are a representation of how efficiently a company captures portions of sales dollars. First American's net margins, which reflect what percentage of revenue becomes profit, have dropped year over year for the last three quarters. Here are First American's reported margins for the last four quarters:

Quarter

Q3

Q2

Q1

Q4

Net Margin

2.2%

3.5%

(1.6%)

4.6%

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks.