Christopher & Banks (NYSE: CBK) will try to beat its earnings estimates for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Tuesday. Christopher & Banks operates retail stores selling women's apparel in the United States.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: 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 $94.3 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a decline of 5.4% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is a loss of $0.47 per share.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly supporting the stock, with 93.9% giving it an outperform rating. Most of the community is in line with the All-Stars, with 86.6% awarding it a rating of outperform. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of Christopher & Banks, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:
The company's gross margin shrank by 14.2 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue rose 2.4% while cost of sales rose 25.2% to $97.1 million from a year earlier.

Now let's look at how efficient management is at running the business. Traditionally, margins represent the efficiency with which companies capture portions of sales dollars. Christopher & Banks' net margins, which reflect what percentage of revenue becomes profit, have been dropping year-over-year for the last four quarters. Here are Christopher & Banks' reported margins for the last four quarters:

Quarter

Q3

Q2

Q1

Q4

Gross Margin

21.7%

28.9%

34.7%

22.9%

Operating Margin

(22.8%)

(13.5%)

1.6%

(20.7%)

Net Margin

(22.8%)

(13.5%)

1.5%

(16.8%)

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks.