United Stationers (Nasdaq: USTR) came in right in line with the Street's expectations last quarter, but investors are hoping it will beat them this quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Monday. United Stationers is a wholesale distributor of business products.

What analysts say

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts generally think investors should hang on to United Stationers, with half rating the stock a hold. Analysts don't like United Stationers as much as competitor Manpower overall. Eleven out of 13 analysts rate Manpower a buy compared to two of four for United Stationers. While analysts still rate the stock a moderate buy, they are a little more optimistic about it compared to three months ago.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $1.29 billion in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 5.7% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.61 per share. Estimates range from $0.56 to $0.63.

What our community says
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 92% assigning it an outperform rating. The community at large concurs with the All-Stars with 87.9% giving it a rating of outperform. Fools are keen on United Stationers, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 21 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of United Stationers, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:
United Stationers' profit has risen year over year by an average of 10.8%. Revenue has now gone up for three 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

Q1

Q4

Q3

Q2

Gross Margin

14.7%

16%

15.3%

14.7%

Operating Margin

3.2%

4.9%

5.2%

4.1%

Net Margin

1.7%

2.6%

2.9%

2.2%

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