After beating estimates last quarter by $0.01, FirstMerit (Nasdaq: FMER) has set the standard for itself. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Tuesday. FirstMerit provides a range of banking, fiduciary, financial, insurance and investment services to corporate, institutional, and individual customers throughout Northern and Central Ohio and Western Pennsylvania.

What analysts say

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on FirstMerit with six of 10 analysts rating it hold. Analysts like FirstMerit better than competitor TCF overall. Six out of 17 analysts rate TCF a buy compared to four of 10 for FirstMerit. While analysts still rate the stock a hold, they are a little more optimistic about it compared to three months ago.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $177.9 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 4.7% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.28 per share. Estimates range from $0.26 to $0.30.

What our community says
The majority of CAPS All-Stars see FMER as a good bet, with 60.5% assigning it an outperform rating. The majority of the Fools are in agreement with the All-Stars as 71.2% give it an outperform rating. Fools are keen on FirstMerit, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 37 posts in the past 30 days. FirstMerit's bearish CAPS rating of two out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

Management
FirstMerit's profit has risen year over year by an average of 67.6%.

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

14.4%

13.4%

14.5%

16.4%

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