Greatbatch (NYSE: GB) 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 Wednesday. Greatbatch is a developer and manufacturer of products used in medical devices for the cardiac rhythm management, neuromodulation, vascular, orthopedic, and interventional radiology markets.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts are bullish on Greatbatch, as two analysts rate it as a buy and only one analyst rate it as a sell. Analysts don't like Greatbatch as much as competitor ZOLL Medical overall. That rating hasn't budged in three months as analysts have remained unchanged in their opinion of the stock.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $140.9 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 0% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.43 per share. Estimates range from $0.41 to $0.44.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock, with 88.2% giving it an "outperform" rating. The community at large concurs with the All-Stars, with 85.5% granting it a rating of "outperform." Fools are bullish on Greatbatch, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 34 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of Greatbatch, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:
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

31.7%

33.4%

32.9%

32.3%

Operating Margin

12.1%

18.4%

10.3%

12.3%

Net Margin

8%

10.4%

4.7%

5.5%

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