Watch Hill-Rom Holdings' (NYSE: HRC) earnings report to see whether it can beat analyst expectations for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Wednesday. Hill-Rom Holdings is a worldwide manufacturer and provider of medical technologies and related services for the health care industry for a variety of acute and chronic medical conditions, medical equipment rentals, and information technology solutions.

What analysts say

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on Hill-Rom Holdings with five of nine analysts rating it hold. Analysts like Hill-Rom Holdings better than competitor Invacare overall. One out of three analysts rate Invacare a buy compared to four of nine for Hill-Rom Holdings. Analysts still rate the stock a hold, but they are a bit more wary about it compared to three months ago.
  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $390.5 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 8.3% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.54 per share. Estimates range from $0.50 to $0.58.

What our community says
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 96.7% assigning it an outperform rating. The community at large agrees with the All-Stars with 84.9% awarding it a rating of outperform. Fools are keen on Hill-Rom Holdings, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 34 posts in the past 30 days. The CAPS rating of five out of five stars for Hill-Rom Holdings is far more upbeat than the community assessment.

Management
Hill-Rom Holdings' profit has risen year over year by an average of 64.5%. 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

Q2

Q1

Q4

Q3

Gross Margin

49.4%

49.3%

49.4%

49.4%

Operating Margin

12.3%

13.3%

19.7%

13.2%

Net Margin

8.2%

9.4%

12.8%

8.5%

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