After beating estimates last quarter by $0.05, CLARCOR (NYSE: CLC) has set the standard for itself. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Wednesday. Clarcor conducts its business in three industry segments: engine and mobile filtration, industrial and environmental filtration, and packaging.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on CLARCOR with five of eight analysts rating it hold. Analysts haven't adjusted their rating of CLARCOR for the past three months.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $267.9 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 9% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.47 per share. Estimates range from $0.45 to $0.50.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are enthusiastically backing the stock, with 84.2% giving it an outperform rating. Most of the community concurs with the All-Stars, with 80.3% awarding it a rating of outperform. CLARCOR's bearish CAPS rating of two out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

Management:
CLARCOR's profit has risen year-over-year by an average of 31.5% over the past five quarters. Revenue has now gone up for three straight quarters.

Now let's get some insight into how efficient management is at running the business. Traditionally, margins serve as an illustration of how efficiently a company captures portions of sales dollars. The company's net margins have been increasing year-over-year for the last four quarters. Net margins reflect what percentage of revenue becomes profit. Here are CLARCOR's reported margins for the last four quarters:

Quarter

Q4

Q3

Q2

Q1

Gross Margin

34.8%

33.7%

34.5%

32.9%

Operating Margin

17.8%

16.3%

16.9%

12.7%

Net Margin

12.1%

11.3%

11.4%

8.9%

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks.