I have a soft spot for diversified tech pioneer Corning (NYSE:GLW). A few weeks back, the CEO did me the courtesy of providing perhaps the most open and engaging interview I've ever done for the Fool (read it here). That said, today it's not my role to sing the company's praises, but to give you some views you can use to make sense of tomorrow's news. So on to it.

Wall Street Wisdom:

  • General consensus. Fourteen analysts follow Corning, and most of them love the company and its ability to feed customers like LG.Philips (NYSE:LPL) and Sony (NYSE:SNE) all the glass they can eat. Eleven of the analysts rate the stock a buy, with just three holdouts advising you -- what else? -- to hold.
  • Revenues. With its output of LCD glass rising, but prices for that glass falling, analysts expect Corning to increase revenues for Q4 2005 by just 8.5% over Q4 2004, to $1.2 billion.
  • Earnings. Profits are another story. Analysts expect a near double to $0.22 per share.

Margin watch:
Here's why (and pay no attention to the ugly net results for the four quarters beginning in September 2004; the company took a $1.8 billion restructuring charge there, torpedoing its net results):

Margin %

6/04

9/04

12/04

3/05

6/05

9/05

Gro.

33.1

35.8

36.7

38.0

39.7

41.3

Op.

12.7

17.0

21.1

23.8

26.7

27.2

Net

4.9

(64.7)

(56.2)

(48.5)

(45.2)

17.7
All data courtesy of Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's. Data reflects trailing-12-month performance for the quarters ending in the named months.

Corning's gross margin improvement has been nothing short of amazing. Its operating results leave "amazing" in the dust. This company is on the road to excellence, with the only possible pothole being its .

Key ratios:
Analysts project Corning's profits to grow at an annualized 20.5% over the next five years. But can that justify the firm's price multiple of 46 times earnings, and (gulp!) 133 times free cash flow? Not in this Fool's book. Stay away till this firm's price re-enters the stratosphere.

Competitors:
 3M (NYSE:MMM) here in the U.S., and a few firms you've never heard of over in Japan. Basically, Corning is in a class by itself.

3M is a Motley Fool Inside Value pick. To learn more about Philip Durell's newsletter about undervalued stocks, click here.

Fool contributor Rich Smith does not own shares of any company named above.