First BanCorp Earnings Preview

First BanCorp (NYSE: FBP) 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 Wednesday, July 27. First BanCorp is a bank holding company for FirstBank Puerto Rico, which provides a range of financial services for retail, commercial, and institutional clients.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts like First BanCorp better than competitor Republic Bancorp overall. No analysts rate Republic Bancorp a buy, compared with one of three for First BanCorp. That rating hasn't budged in three months, as analysts have remained steady in their opinion of the stock.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $99.6 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a decline of 21.1% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is a loss of $2.40 per share. Estimates range from a loss of $2.70 to a loss of $2.14.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock, with 84.2% awarding it an "outperform" rating. The community at large agrees with the All-Stars, with 79.4% granting it a rating of "outperform." Fools have embraced First BanCorp, though the message boards have been quiet lately, with only 82 posts in the past 30 days. First BanCorp's bearish CAPS rating of two out of five stars falls short of the Fool community's sentiment.

Management:
Revenue has fallen for the past three 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 net margins over the past four quarters.