Global Payments (NYSE: GPN) hasn't been able to establish an earnings trend, bouncing between beating and falling short of estimates during the past fiscal year. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Thursday. Global Payments is a processor of electronic transactions for merchants, multinational corps, financial institutions, government agencies, and other business and non-profit business enterprises.

What analysts say

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on Global Payments with 13 of 25 analysts rating it hold. Analysts like Global Payments better than competitor Heartland Payment Systems overall. Five out of 13 analysts rate Heartland Payment Systems a buy compared to 12 of 25 for Global Payments.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $475.9 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 12% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.73 per share. Estimates range from $0.65 to $0.82.

What our community says
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock with 95.9% assigning it an outperform rating. The community at large backs the All-Stars with 90.2% giving it a rating of outperform. Fools are bullish on Global Payments, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 80 posts in the past 30 days. Global Payments has a bullish CAPS rating of five out of five stars that is about on par with the Fool community assessment.

Management
Global Payments' income has fallen year over year by an average of 10%. The company's revenue has now risen for two straight 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 gross, operating, and net margins over the past four quarters.

Quarter

Q3

Q2

Q1

Q4

Gross Margin

63.1%

65.2%

65.7%

64.2%

Operating Margin

17.1%

18.7%

18.7%

16.8%

Net Margin

10.5%

12.1%

11.2%

8.0%

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