J.B. Hunt Transport Services (Nasdaq: JBHT) 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, July 14. J.B. Hunt Transport Services is the wholesale distributor of specialty technology products, providing value-added distribution sales to resellers in the specialty technology markets.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back J.B. Hunt Transport, with 20 of 26 rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts like J.B. Hunt Transport better than competitor Con-way overall. Analysts' rating of J.B. Hunt Transport has stayed constant from three months prior.
  • Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $1.11 billion in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 17.7% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.53 per share. Estimates range from $0.48 to $0.57.

What our community says:
The majority of CAPS All-Stars see JBHT as a good bet, with 75% granting it an "outperform" rating. The majority of the Fools are in agreement with the All-Stars as 72.8% give it an "outperform" rating. Fools are gung-ho about J.B. Hunt Transport, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 96 posts in the past 30 days. J.B. Hunt Transport's bearish CAPS rating of two out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

Management:
J.B. Hunt Transport Services' profit has risen year over year by an average of 54.9%.

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. The following table shows gross, operating, and net margins over the past four quarters. 

Quarter Q1 Q4 Q3 Q2
Gross Margin 40.1% 40.9% 42.1% 42.4%
Operating Margin 9% 9.5% 9.3% 9.7%
Net Margin 5% 5.7% 5.3% 5.5%

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