Watch Actuant's (NYSE: ATU) earnings report to see if it can beat analyst expectations for the third consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Wednesday. Actuant is a global manufacturer and marketer of a range of industrial products and systems.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: The majority of analysts back Actuant as a buy. But with 66.7% of analysts rating it a buy, Actuant is still below the mean analyst rating of its nearest seven competitors, which average 78.4% buys. Analysts like Actuant better than competitor Sun Hydraulics overall. Zero out of two analysts rate Sun Hydraulics a buy compared to eight of 12 for Actuant. That rating hasn't budged in three months as analysts have remained steadfast in their opinion of the stock.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $368.5 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 11.4% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.37 per share. Estimates range from $0.34 to $0.40.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly supporting the stock, with 99.5% granting it an outperform rating. The community at large backs the All-Stars, with 98.2% assigning it a rating of outperform. Actuant has a bullish CAPS rating of five out of five stars that is about on par with the Fool community assessment.

Management:

Now, a look at how efficient management has been at running the business. Traditionally, margins represent the efficiency with which companies capture portions of sales dollars. Actuant has seen rising net margins year-over-year for the last three quarters. Net margins reflect what percentage of each dollar earned by the company becomes profit. Here is how Actuant has been doing for the last four quarters:

Quarter

Q1

Q4

Q3

Q2

Gross Margin

38.9%

38.4%

39.2%

37.8%

Operating Margin

14.6%

14.1%

14.8%

11.2%

Net Margin

9.5%

10.3%

9.3%

2.4%

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks.