Fulton Financial (Nasdaq: FULT) only managed to meet estimates last quarter, but investors hope that it will surpass expectations this quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Tuesday. Fulton Financial is a multi-bank financial holding company which provides a full range of banking and financial services to businesses and consumers through its wholly owned banking subsidiaries.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold? The majority of analysts back Fulton Financial as a buy. But with 53.8% of analysts rating it a buy, Fulton Financial is still below the mean analyst rating of its nearest 10 competitors, which average 64.3% buys. Analysts like Fulton Financial better than competitor National Penn Bancshares overall. Four out of 10 analysts rate National Penn Bancshares a buy compared to seven of 13 for Fulton Financial. Fulton Financial's rating hasn't changed over the past three months.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $144.9 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 1.3% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of 18 cents per share. Estimates range from 16 cents to 19 cents.

What our community says:
Most CAPS All Stars are skeptical of FULT prospects, with 56.9% granting it an "underperform" rating. The community is split on the stock with 51.9% Fools assigning it an "outperform" rating and 48.1% an "underperform" rating. Fools are skeptical of Fulton Financial, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 50 posts in the past 30 days. Fulton Financial's bearish CAPS rating of two out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

Management:
Fulton Financial's profit has risen year over year by an average of 63.8%. Revenue has fallen for the past three quarters.

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 net margins over the past four quarters. 

Quarter Q1 Q4 Q3 Q2
Net Margin 15.1% 13.5% 15.9% 13.7%

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